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Tfiurloiu  E.  Coon 
and  Susan  D,  Coon 


3   1822  01346  9143 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

Mrs.   Susan   Coon 


51  \ 
'^1 


MAN  OR  THE  STATE  ? 


MAN  OR  THE  STATE? 

A  Group  of  Essays  by  Famous  Writers 


COMPILED  AND  EDITED  BY 

WALDO  R.  BROWNE 


"What  is  it  to  be  born  free  and  not  to 
live  free?  What  is  the  value  of  any  pol- 
itical freedom  but  as  a  means  to  moral 
freedom?  Is  it  a  freedom  to  be  slaves,  or 
a  freedom  to  be  free,  of  which  we  boast?" 
Thoreau 


NEW  YORK 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT    1919  BY 
B.    W.    HUEBSCH 

PRINTED   IN   U.    S.    A. 


CONTENTS 

CIIAPTEE  PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I.     P.  Kropotkin:     The  State,  Its  Historic  Roi,k        1 

II.     Henry    Thomas    Buckle:     Inquiry    Into    the 

Influence  Exerciseo  by  Government      .      .      4>4t 

III.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson:     Politics     ....      57 

IV,  Henry    David    Thoreau:     On     the    Duty    of 

Civil  Disobedience 70 

V.     Herbert  Spencer:     The  Right  to  Ignore  the 

State 90 

VI.     Leo  Tolstoy:     Appeal  to  Social  Reformers     .    100 

VII.     Oscar     Wilde:     The     Soul     of     Man     Under 

Socialism 118 


INTRODUCTION 

"  The  great  events  of  the  day  occupy  my  thoughts  much  at 
present.  The  old  illusory  France  has  collapsed;  and  as  soon 
as  the  new,  real  Prussia  does  the  same,  we  shall  be  with  one 
bound  in  a  new  age.  How  ideas  will  then  come  tumbling  about 
our  ears !  And  it  is  high  time  they  did.  Up  till  now  we 
have  been  living  on  nothing  but  the  crumbs  from  the  revolu- 
tionary table  of  last  century,  a  food  out  of  which  all  nutri- 
ment has  long  been  chewed.  The  old  terms  require  to  have 
a  new  meaning  infused  into  them.  Liberty,  equality,  and 
fraternity  are  no  longer  the  things  they  were  in  the  days  of 
the  late-lamented  guillotine.  That  is  what  the  politicians 
will  not  understand;  and  therefore  I  hate  them.  They  want 
only  their  own  special  revolutions  —  revolutions  in  exter- 
nals, in  politics,  etc.  But  all  this  is  mere  trifling.  What  is 
all-important  is  the  revolution  of  the  spirit  of  man." 

Thus  in  1870  wrote  Ibsen,  greatest  in  his  day  of  the  rare 
originative  geniuses  who  "  carry  in  their  brains  the  ovarian 
eggs  of  the  next  generation's  or  century's  civilization."  And 
now  at  last,  after  nearly  fifty  years,  the  fulfilment  of  that 
prophecy  is  at  hand.  Not  Prussia  merely,  but  the  most  of 
monarchist  Europe  has  collapsed.  The  old  ideas  are  tum- 
bling about  our  ears  at  a  rate  which  possibly  Ibsen  himself 
did  not  foresee.  Even  that  hoariest  and  most  impregnable 
of  them  all,  the  idea  of  the  absolute  State,  though  propped 
and  buttressed  during  the  past  five  years  as  never  before  in 
history,  is  everywhere  visibly  tottering  —  where  it  has  not 
already  tumbled.     A  new  age  is  indeed  upon  us ! 

Probably  no  proof  of  failure  less  complete  and  terrible 
than  the  recent  cataclysm  could  have  shaken  man's  mystic 
devotion   to   the   State.     However   it   has    oppressed,   impov- 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

erished,  impeded  him,  he  has  for  the  most  part  always  re- 
garded it  as  an  inevitable  and  indispensable  part  of  the  di- 
vine machinery,  as  remote  from  his  control  as  gravitation  or 
the  weather.  All  through  the  centuries  he  has  blindly  ac- 
ceded to  its  insatiable  demands,  blindly  conformed  to  its 
endless  inhibitions,  blindly  sacrificed  himself  and  his  posses- 
sions to  its  alleged  interests.  Fed  so  long  on  this  monot- 
onous diet  of  subserviency,  the  State  came  quite  naturally 
to  imagine  that  there  existed  no  law  of  God  or  man  to  which 
it  was  not  superior  —  of  which  fatal  delusion  the  conse- 
quences are  today  writ  large  in  blood  and  fire  across  half 
the  world. 

The  great  underlying  principle  of  English  law,  according 
to  Dickens,  is  to  make  business  for  itself.  The  great  under- 
lying principle  of  the  State,  it  might  be  said  with  equal  truth, 
is  to  make  power  for  itself.  As  Renan  pointed  out,  "  it 
knows  but  one  thing  —  how  to  organize  egotism."  So  pre- 
occupied with  this  task  has  it  been  that  it  long  ago  forgot, 
if  indeed  it  ever  knew,  that  such  a  thing  as  the  human  soul 
exists.  But  now  at  last,  aroused  to  rebellion  by  almost  in- 
tolerable afflictions,  the  human  soul  begins  to  assert  its  su- 
premacy. Of  tliat  duel  the  ultimate  issue  is  certain  and 
near  at  hand.  The  servant  who  has  so  long  usurped  the 
master's  place  must  return  below  stairs;  the  instrument  must 
finally  yield  to  its  creator. 

But  for  all  its  crimes  against  humanity,  the  time  is  not 
yet  when  we  can  abolish  the  State  entirely,  as  Ibsen  urged, 
and  "  make  willingness  and  spiritual  kinship  the  onlv  essen- 
tials in  the  case  of  a  union."  Eventually,  unless  moral 
progress  is  an  illusion,  that  ideal  will  be  realized.  Mankind, 
however,  has  yet  to  serve  a  long  and  rigorous  novitiate  be- 
fore it  can  be  worthy  of  such  a  consummation.  Philosophic 
anarchism  is  a  creed  that  postulates  too  much  nobility,  too 
much  self-restraint  and  self-abnegation,  in  common  human 
nature  to  be  immediately  practicable.  For  a  few  decades 
(perhaps   even   a   few   generations)    longer,    Man   must   con- 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

tinue  to  bear  as  best  he  may  witli  those  accusing  symbols  of 
his  moral  imperfection,  the  policeman  and  the  soldier. 

If,  then,  the  State  cannot  at  once  be  dispensed  with,  the 
alternative  is  reform,  revision,  melioration  of  the  State  idea. 
Here  we  shall  at  least  be  sure  of  a  multitude  of  counsellors, 
each  with  his  favorite  State-theory  or  State-pattern  to  urge 
for  adoption.  It  would  be  well  to  dismiss  at  the  start  those 
slightly  anachronistic  physicians  who  invariably  prescribe 
more  centralization  as  a  cure  for  the  ailments  of  our  over- 
centralized  State.  Their  ideal  is  pre-war  Prussia,  though 
they  will  not  often  admit  it.  But  of  Prussia  as  a  working 
model  of  State-theory  we  might  say,  as  Talleyrand  said  of 
the  English  public  school  system,  "  It  is  the  best  we  have 
ever  seen;  and  it  is  abominable."  The  earnest  seeker  for 
light  will  turn  with  far  more  of  hope  and  interest  to  storm- 
swept  Russia.  Out  of  the  Soviet  experiment,  and  out  of 
the  ideas  of  the  Guild  Socialists  in  England,  is  evolving  what 
may  well  prove  to  be  the  State-norm  of  the  immediate  future 
—  or  something  very  like  it. 

But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  problem  of  the 
State  is  essentially  a  spiritual  one.  Political  forms  and  in- 
stitutions, legal  systems,  legislative  enactments,  all  the  char- 
ters and  codes  and  statutes  in  Christendom,  are  valid  and 
stable  only  as  they  tend  to  assure  freedom  and  justice  to 
individuals.  Political  freedom  is  of  value  only  as  it  leads 
to  moral  freedom,  and  there  can  be  no  public  justice  that 
does  not  find  its  ultimate  sanction  in  private  conscience.  The 
State,  if  it  is  to  endure  at  all,  must  devote  itself  henceforth 
to  the  organization  of  altruism  rather  than  egotism;  it  must 
slough  off  completely  its  old  predatory  and  repressive  char- 
acter, and  embrace  the  ideals  of  brotherhood  and  association. 
Above  all,  it  must  respect  and  preserve  inviolate  at  whatever 
cost  the  principle  of  individual  freedom.  Not  freedom  to 
prey  upon  others,  which  was  really  the  essence  of  the  old 
individualism,  but  freedom  from  being  preyed  upon.  Not 
the  shadow  of  freedom,  but  its  substance:  not  political  free- 


X  INTRODUCTION 

dom  merely,  but  moral  and  economic  freedom.  If  a  govern- 
ment cannot  permanently  exist  half  slave  and  half  free,  how 
much  less  so  can  a  human  being! 

More  than  this  I  shall  not  venture  by  way  of  prophecy. 
My  purpose  has  been  simply  to  indicate  the  problem,  to  ac- 
centuate the  need  of  reform.  Definite  solutions  I  must  leave 
to  abler  intellects.  My  present  appearance  is  in  the  lowly 
capacity  of  Editor,  and  as  such  I  fall  back  upon  the  pre- 
cedent established  or  at  least  invoked  by  Carlyle:  "  Edi- 
tors are  not  here,  foremost  of  all,  to  say  How.  .  .  .  An  Edi- 
tor's stipulated  work  is  to  apprise  thee  that  it  must  be  done. 
The  '  way  to  do  it,' —  is  to  try  it,  knowing  that  thou  shalt 
die  if  it  be  not  done.  There  is  the  bare  back,  there  is  the 
v.eb  of  cloth;  thou  shalt  cut  me  a  coat  to  cover  the  bare 
back,  thou  whose  trade  it  is.  '  Impossible  ?  '  Hapless  Frac- 
tion, dost  thou  discern  Fate  there,  half  unveiling  herself  in 
tlie  gloom  of  the  future,  with  her  gibbet-cords,  her  steel- 
wliips,  and  very  authentic  Tailor's  Hell,  waiting  to  see 
whether  it  is  '  possible  '  ?  Out  with  thy  scissors,  and  cut  that 
clotli  or  thy  own  windpipe !  " 

In  considering  the  problem  of  the  State  the  great  thing, 
as  Ibsen  has  pointed  out,  is  not  to  allow  one's  self  to  be 
friglitened  by  the  venerableness  of  the  institution.  For  those 
inclined  to  be  thus  frightened,  as  well  as  for  a  good  many 
otliers,  I  have  thought  that  a  useful  purpose  miglit  be  served 
by  bringing  together  a  group  of  essays,  written  by  some  of 
the  foremost  thinkers  of  our  time,  which  at  least  make  plain 
that  in  neither  its  history  nor  its  workings  is  the  State  a 
sacrosanct  affair;  that  it  is  by  no  means  an  incrrant  or  ir- 
reproachable, even  a  reasonably  efficient,  social  instrument; 
that  under  some  other  collective  administrative  arrangement 
humanity  might  achieve  a  far  nobler  and  happier  existence. 
The  autliors  of  these  essays  are  of  widely  various,  even  di- 
rcctlv  antagonistic,  social  creeds;  yet  in  the  main  points  of 
their  indictment  against  the  State  they  are  at  one. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

A  certain  congruity  of  selection  and  arrangement  will,  I 
hope,  be  apparent  in  the  contents  of  this  volume.  Kropot- 
kin's  essay  deals  with  the  origin  and  historic  evolution  of 
the  State.  The  chapter  from  Buckle,  one  of  the  greatest 
of  philosophic  historians,  records  the  State's  notable  failure 
as  a  legislative  agent.  The  three  following  papers  consti- 
tute the  challenge  of  the  higher  Individualism,  as  embodied 
in  Emerson's  serene  and  optimistic  generalities,  looking  to- 
ward a  society  perfected  from  within;  in  Thoreau's  keen 
eloquence,  asserting  the  supremacy  of  personal  Conscience 
over  all  other  autliority;  in  Herbert  Spencer's  clear-cut  logic 
arguing  tlie  right  of  freedom  from  external  control  as  an  inevi- 
table corollary  to  his  "  first  principle  "  of  social  ethics  — 
that  "  Every  man  has  freedom  to  do  all  that  he  wills,  pro- 
vided he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of  any  other  man." 
In  the  next  essay  Tolstoy  pleads  the  case  for  Christian  an- 
archism, or  social  salvation  through  individual  self-perfection 
combined  with  passive  resistance  to  the  State.  Finally,  we 
have  Oscar  Wilde's  glowing  and  trenchant  statement  of  the 
manner  of  life  that  would  be  possible  in  a  really  free  so- 
ciety. 

If  this  little  book  did  no  more  than  make  generally  avail- 
able, as  it  does,  the  first  of  these  essays,  I  should  feel  that 
its  existence  were  sufficiently  justified.  Prince  Kropotkin's 
avowed  position  as  an  apostle  of  philosophic  anarchism  will 
of  course  repel  those  numerous  persons  who,  like  crows,  in- 
variably take  flight  with  much  raucous  cawing  from  the  ver- 
bal bugaboos  which  they  are  too  timid  or  too  stupid  to  in- 
vestigate. But  it  need  alarm  no  others.  Despite  his  faith 
in  a  society  based  upon  "  willingness  and  spiritual  kinship  " 
rather  than  upon  coercion,  Kropotkin  holds  a  secure  place 
among  those  of  our  time  whose  work  has  left  a  permanent 
impress  upon  human  thought.  Every  reader  of  his  "  Mu- 
tual Aid  "  knows  how  deeply  and  widely  he  has  explored 
the  origins  of  society, —  upon  what  a  vast  range  of  data  his 
conclusions   are  based.     The  essay  here  reprinted  is  a  pro- 


3di  INTRODUCTION 

duct  of  the  same  study,  though  of  course  restricted  to  a 
narrower  field,  that  went  to  the  making  of  "  Mutual  Aid." 

The  reader  may  wonder,  particularly  in  view  of  several 
references  in  this  Introduction,  why  Ibsen  is  not  represented 
in  the  main  contents  of  the  compilation.  But  my  plan  has 
been  to  include  only  complete,  or  fairly  complete,  essays; 
and  unfortunately,  Ibsen's  appearances  in  what  he  calls 
"  my  capacity  as  state-satirist  "  are  in  the  way  of  brief  and 
scattered  glimpses  rather  than  in  any  sustained  exposition. 
Yet  no  one  else,  save  possibly  Thoreau,  pierces  so  directly  to 
the  heart  of  the  matter, —  as  witness  this  final  quotation: 

"  The  State  is  the  curse  of  the  individual.  With  what  is 
the  strength  of  Prussia  as  a  State  bought?  With  the  merg- 
ing of  the  individual  in  the  political  and  geographical  con- 
cept. The  waiter  makes  the  best  soldier.  Now,  turn  to  the 
Jewish  nation,  the  nobility  of  the  human  race.  How  has  it 
preserved  itself  —  isolated,  poetical  —  despite  all  the  bar- 
barity from  without?  Because  it  had  no  State  to  burden  it. 
Had  the  Jewish  nation  remained  in  Palestine,  it  would  long 
since  have  been  ruined  in  the  process  of  construction,  like 
all  the  other  nations.  .  .  .  The  State  has  its  roots  in  Time: 
it  will  liave  its  culmination  in  Time.  Greater  things  than  it 
will  fall;  all  religion  will  fall.  Neither  the  conceptions  of 
morality  nor  those  of  art  are  eternal.  To  how  much  are  we 
really  obliged  to  pin  our  faith?  Who  will  vouch  for  it  that 
two  and  two  do  not  make  five  up  in  Jupiter?  " 

Waldo  R.  Browne 


p.  KROPOTKIN 

(b.   1842) 
THE  STATE:  ITS  HISTORIC  ROLE  ^ 


In  taking  as  subject  for  this  lecture  the  State  and  the  part  it 
has  played  in  history  I  thought  it  would  respond  to  a  need 
which  is  greatly  felt  at  this  moment.  It  is  of  consequence, 
after  having  so  often  criticized  the  present  State,  to  seek 
the  cause  of  its  appearance,  to  investigate  the  part  played 
by  it  in  the  past,  and  to  compare  it  with  the  institutions 
which  it  superseded. 

Let  us  first  agree  as  to  what  we  mean  by  the  word  State. 

There  is,  as  you  know,  the  German  school  that  likes  to 
confuse  the  State  with  Society.  This  confusion  is  to  be 
met  with  even  among  the  best  German  thinkers  and  many 
French  ones,  who  cannot  conceive  of  Society  without  State 
concentration.  Yet  to  reason  thus  is  entirely  to  ignore  the 
progress  made  in  the  domain  of  history  during  the  last  thirty 
years ;  it  is  to  ignore  the  fact  that  men  have  lived  in  societies 
during  thousands  of  years  before  having  known  the  State; 
it  is  to  forget  that  for  European  nations  the  State  is  of  re- 
cent origin  —  that  it  hardly  dates  from  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury; it  is  to  fail  to  recognise  that  the  most  glorious  epochs 
in  humanity  were  those  in  which  liberties  and  local  life  were 
not  yet  destroyed  by  the  State,  and  when  masses  of  men 
lived  in  communes  and  free  federations. 

1  Published  in  1898.  The  text  used  here  is  that  of  the  edition 
issued  in  two-penny  tract  form  from  the  office  of  "  Freedom,"  Lon- 
don. It  is  evidently  a  translation  from  the  French,  poorly  done 
and  wretchedly  printed;  for  the  present  purpose  it  has  undergone 
careful  and  thorough  revision.  A  few  passages  more  particularly 
propagandistic  than  historical  in  substance,  amounting  altogether 
to  perhaps  one-seventh  of  the  entire  essay,  are  omitted  here. 

1 


2  KROPOTKIN 

The  State  is  but  one  of  the  forms  taken  by  Society  in  the 
course  of  history.     How  can  one  be  confused  with  the  other? 

On  the  other  hand,  the  State  has  also  been  confused  with 
Government.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  State  and  Gov- 
ernment represent  two  ideas  of  a  different  kind.  The  State 
idea  implies  quite  another  idea  to  that  of  Government.  It 
not  only  includes  the  existence  of  a  power  placed  above  So- 
ciety, but  also  a  territorial  concentration  and  a  concentration 
of  many  functions  of  the  life  of  Society  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  or  even  of  all.  It  implies  new  relations  among  the  mem- 
bers of  society. 

This  cliaracteristic  distinction,  which  perhaps  escapes  no- 
tice at  first  sight,  appears  clearly  when  the  origin  of  the  State 
is  studied. 

Really  to  understand  the  State  there  is,  in  fact,  but  one 
way:  it  is  to  study  it  in  its  historical  development,  and  that 
is  what  I  am  going  to  endeavor  to  do. 

The  Roman  Empire  was  a  State  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word.     To  the  present  day  it  is  the  ideal  of  students  of  law. 

Its  organs  covered  a  vast  domain  with  a  close  network. 
Everything  flowed  towards  Rome,  economic  life,  military  life, 
judicial  relations,  riches,  education,  even  religion.  From  Rome 
came  laws,  magistrates,  legions  to  defend  their  territory,  gov- 
ernors to  rule  the  j)rovinces,  gods.  The  whole  life  of  tlie  Em- 
pire could  be  traced  back  to  the  Senate;  later  on  to  the  Caesar, 
the  omnipotent  and  omniscient,  the  god  of  the  Empire.  Every 
province  and  every  district  had  its  miniature  Capitol,  its 
little  share  of  Roman  sovereignty  to  direct  its  whole  life. 
One  law,  the  law  imposed  by  Rome,  governed  the  Empire; 
and  that  Empire  did  not  represent  a  confederation  of  citi- 
zens.—  it  was  onl}^  a  flock  of  subjects. 

Even  at  present,  the  students  of  law  and  the  authoritarians 
altogether  admire  the  unity  of  that  Empire,  the  spirit  of 
unity  of  those  laws,  the  beauty  (they  say),  the  harmony  of 
that  organisation. 

But  tlie  internal  decomposition  furthered  by  barbarian 
invasion,  the  death  of  local  life,  henceforth  unable  to  resist 


KROPOTKIN  3 

attacks  from  without,  and  the  gangrene  spreading  from  the 
centre,  pulled  that  Empire  to  pieces,  and  on  its  ruins  was 
established  and  developed  a  new  civilisation,  which  is  ours  to- 
day. 

And  if,  putting  aside  antique  empires,  we  study  the  origin 
and  development  of  that  young  barbarian  civilisation  till 
the  time  when  it  gave  birth  to  our  modern  States,  we  shall 
be  able  to  grasp  the  essence  of  the  State.  We  shall 
do  it  better  than  we  should  have  done  if  we  had  launched 
ourselves  into  the  study  of  the  Roman  Empire,  of  the  empire 
of   Alexander,   or   else   of   despotic   Eastern   monarchies. 

In  taking  these  powerful  barbarian  destroyers  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire  as  a  starting  point,  we  can  retrace  the  evolution 
of  all  civilisation  from  its  origin  till  it  reaches  the  stage  of 
the  State. 

II 

Most  of  the  philosophers  of  the  last  century  had  conceived 
very  elementary  notions  about  the  origin  of  societies. 

At  the  beginning,  they  said,  men  lived  in  small,  isolated 
families,  and  perpetual  war  among  these  families  represented 
the  normal  condition  of  existence.  But  one  fine  day,  per- 
ceiving the  drawbacks  of  these  endless  struggles,  they  de- 
cided to  form  a  society.  A  "  social  contract "  was  agreed 
upon  among  scattered  families,  who  willingly  submitted  to 
an  autliority,  which  authority  (need  I  tell  you.^)  became  the 
starting  point  and  the  initiative  of  all  progress.  Must  I 
add,  as  you  have  already  been  told  in  school,  that  our  present 
governments  have  ever  since  impersonated  the  noble  role 
of  salt  of  the  earth,  the  pacifiers  and  civilisers  of  humanity.^ 

This  conception,  which  was  born  at  a  time  when  little  was 
known  about  the  origin  of  man,  prevailed  in  the  last  cen- 
tury ;  and  we  must  say  that  in  the  hands  of  the  Encyclopae- 
dists and  of  Rousseau  the  idea  of  a  "  social  contract  "  became 
a  powerful  weapon  with  which  to  fight  royalty  and  divine 
right.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  services  it  may  have  ren- 
dered in  the  past,  that  theory  must  now  be  recognised  as 
false. 


4  KROPOTKIN 

The  fact  is  that  all  animals,  save  some  beasts  and  birds  of 
prey  and  a  few  species  that  are  in  course  of  extinction,  live 
in  societies.  In  the  struggle  for  existence  it  is  the  sociable 
species  that  get  the  better  of  those  that  are  not.  In  every 
class  of  animals  the  former  occupy  the  top  of  the  ladder, 
and  there  cannot  be  the  least  doubt  that  the  first  beings  of 
human  aspect  already  lived  in  societies.  Man  did  not  cre- 
ate society ;   society  is  anterior  to  man. 

We  also  know  to-day  —  anthropology  has  clearly  demon- 
strated it  —  that  the  starting  point  of  humanity  was  not  the 
family  but  the  clan,  the  tribe.  The  paternal  family  such  as 
we  have  it,  or  such  as  it  is  depicted  in  Hebrew  tradition, 
appeared  only  very  much  later.  Men  lived  tens  of  thousands 
of  years  in  the  stage  of  clan  or  tribe,  and  during  that  first 
stage  —  let  us  call  it  primitive  or  savage  tribe,  if  you  will 
—  man  already  developed  a  whole  series  of  institutions, 
habits,  and  customs,  far  anterior  to  the  paternal  family  in- 
stitutions. 

In  those  tribes  the  separate  family  existed  no  more  than 
it  exists  among  so  many  other  sociable  mammalia.  Divi- 
sions in  the  midst  of  the  tribe  itself  were  formed  by  genera- 
tions; and  since  the  earliest  periods  of  tribal  life  limitations 
were  established  to  hinder  marriage  relations  between  dif- 
ferent generations,  while  they  were  freely  practiced  between 
members  of  the  same  generation.  Traces  of  that  period 
are  still  extant  in  certain  contemporary  tribes,  and  we  find 
them  again  in  the  language,  customs,  and  superstitions  of 
nations  who  were  far  more  advanced  in  civilisation. 

The  whole  tribe  hunted  and  harvested  in  common,  and 
when  they  were  satisfied  they  gave  themselves  up  with  pas- 
sion to  their  dramatic  dances.  Nowadays  we  still  find  tribes 
very  near  to  this  primitive  phase,  driven  back  to  the  out- 
skirts of  the  large  continents,  or  in  Alpine  regions,  the  least 
accessible  of  our  globe. 

The  accumulation  of  private  property  could  not  take  place, 
because  each  thing  that  had  been  the  personal  projierty  of  a 
member  of  the  tribe  was  destroyed  or  burned  on  the  spot 
where   liis   corpse   was   buried.     This   is   done   even   now   by 


KROPOTKIN  5 

gipsies  in  England,  and  the  funeral  rites  of  the  "  civilised  " 
still  bear  its  traces :  the  Chinese  burn  paper  models  of  what 
the  dead  possessed;  and  we  lead  the  military  chief's  horse, 
and  carry  his  sword  and  decorations,  as  far  as  the  grave. 
The  meaning  of  the  institution  is  lost;  only  the  form  sur- 
vives. 

Far  from  professing  contempt  for  human  life,  these  primi- 
tive individuals  had  a  horror  of  blood  and  murder.  Shed- 
ding blood  was  considered  a  deed  of  such  gravity  that  each 
drop  of  blood  shed  —  not  only  the  blood  of  men,  but  also 
that  of  certain  animals  —  required  that  the  aggressor  should 
lose  an  equal  quantity  of  blood.  In  fact,  a  murder  within 
the  tribe  was  a  deed  absolutely  unknown ;  it  is  so  to  this 
day  among  the  Ino'i'ts  or  Esquimaux  —  those  survivors  of 
the  Stone  Age  that  inhabit  the  Arctic  regions.  But  when 
tribes  of  different  origin,  color,  or  tongue  met  during  their 
migrations,  war  was  often  the  result.  It  is  true  that  already 
men  had  tried  to  mitigate  the  effect  of  these  shocks.  Even 
thus  early,  as  has  been  so  well  demonstrated  by  Maine, 
Post,  and  Nys,  the  tribes  agreed  upon  and  respected  cer- 
tain rules  and  limitations  of  war,  which  contained  the  germs 
of  what  was  to  become  international  law  later  on.  For 
example,  a  village  was  not  to  be  attacked  without  warning  to 
the  inhabitants ;  and  no  one  would  have  dared  to  kill  on  a  path 
trodden  by  women  going  to  the  well. 

However,  from  that  time  forward  one  general  law  over- 
ruled all  others:  "Your  people  have  killed  or  wounded 
one  of  ours,  therefore  we  have  the  right  to  kill  one  of  yours, 
or  to  inflict  an  absolutely  similar  wound  on  one  of  yours  " 
—  never  mind  which,  as  it  is  always  the  tribe  that  is  re- 
sponsible for  every  act  of  its  members.  The  well-known 
biblical  verses,  "  Blood  for  blood,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  a  wound  for  a  wound,  a  life  for  a  life," — but 
no  more !  —  thence  derive  their  origin,  as  was  so  well  re- 
marked by  Koenigswarter.  It  was  their  conception  of  jus- 
tice; and  we  have  not  much  reason  to  boast,  as  the  principle 
of  "  a  life  for  a  life  "  which  prevails  in  our  codes  is  but  one 
of  its  numerous  survivals. 

As  you  see,  a  whole  series  of  institutions,  and  many  others 


6  KROPOTKIN 

which  I  must  pass  over  in  silence, —  a  whole  code  of  tribal 
morals, —  was  already  elaborated  during  this  primitive  stage. 
And  habit,  custom,  tradition  sufficed  to  maintain  this  kernel 
of  social  customs  in  force;  there  was  no  authority  to  impose 
it. 

Primitive  individuals  had,  no  doubt,  temporary  leaders. 
The  sorcerer  and  the  rain-maker  (the  scientist  of  that  epoch) 
sought  to  profit  by  what  they  knew,  or  thought  they  knew, 
about  nature,  to  rule  over  their  fellow  men.  Likewise,  he 
who  could  best  remember  proverbs  and  songs  in  which  tra- 
dition was  embodied  became  powerful.  And,  since  then,  these 
"  educated  "  men  have  endeavored  to  secure  their  rulership 
by  transmitting  their  knowledge  onlj"  to  the  elect.  All  re- 
ligions, and  even  all  arts  and  crafts,  have  begun,  as  you  know, 
by  "  mysteries."  Also,  the  brave,  the  bold,  and  the  cunning 
man  became  the  temporary  leader  during  conflicts  with  other 
tribes  or  during  migrations.  But  an  alliance  between  the 
"  law  bearer,"  the  military  chief,  and  the  witch-doctor  did 
not  exist,  and  tliere  can  be  no  more  question  of  a  State  with 
these  tribes  than  there  is  in  a  society  of  bees  or  ants  or 
among  our  contemporaries  the  Patagonians  or  Esquimaux. 

This  stage,  however,  lasted  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
years,  and  the  barbarians  who  invaded  the  Roman  Empire 
had  just  passed  through  it, —  in  fact,  they  had  hardly 
emerged  from  it. 

In  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  immense  migrations  took 
place  among  the  tribes  and  confederations  of  tribes  that  in- 
habited Central  and  Northern  Asia.  A  stream  of  people, 
driven  by  more  or  less  civilised  tribes,  came  down  from  the 
table-lands  of  Asia  —  probably  driven  away  by  the  rapid 
drying-up  of  those  plateaux  — and  inundated  Europe,  im- 
pelling one  another  onward,  mingling  witli  one  another  in 
their  overflow  towards  the  West. 

During  these  migrations,  wlicn  so  many  tribes  of  diverse 
origin  were  intermixed,  tlie  primitive  tribe  which  still  ex- 
isted among  them  and  the  primitive  inhabitants  of  Europe 
necessarily  became  disaggregated.  The  tril)e  was  based  on 
its    common    origin,    on    the    worship    of    common    ancestors. 


KROPOTKIN  7 

But  what  common  origin  could  be  invoked  by  the  agglomera- 
tions that  emerged  from  the  hurly-burly  of  migrations,  col- 
lisions, wars  between  tribes,  during  which  we  see  the  pa- 
ternal family  spring  up  here  and  there  —  the  kernel  formed 
by  some  men  appropriating  women  they  had  conquered  or 
kidnapped  from  neighboring  tribes  ? 

Ancient  ties  were  rent  asunder,  and  under  pain  of  a  gen- 
eral break-up  (that  took  place,  in  fact,  for  many  a  tribe,  which 
then  disappeared  from  history)  it  was  essential  that  new 
ties  should  spring  up.  And  they  did  spring  up.  They  were 
found  in  the  communal  possession  of  land  —  of  a  territory, 
on   which   such   an  agglomeration   ended  by   settling  down. 

The  possession  in  common  of  a  certain  territory,  of  cer- 
tain valleys,  plains,  or  mountains,  became  the  basis  of  a 
new  agreement.  Ancient  gods  had  lost  all  meaning;  and  the 
local  gods  of  a  valley,  river,  or  forest  gave  the  religious 
consecration  to  the  new  agglomeration,  substituting  them- 
selves for  the  gods  of  the  primitive  tribe.  Later  on,  Chris- 
tianity, always  ready  to  accommodate  itself  to  pagan  sur- 
vivals, made  local  saints  of  those  gods. 

Henceforth,  the  village  community,  composed  partly  or 
entirely  of  separate  families  — ■  all  united,  nevertheless,  by 
the  possession  in  common  of  the  land  —  became  the  neces- 
sary bond  of  union  for  centuries  to  come.  On  the  immense 
stretches  of  land  in  Eastern  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  it 
still  exists  to-day.  The  barbarians  who  destroyed  the  Ro- 
man Empire  —  Scandinavians,  Germans,  Celts,  Slavs,  etc. — 
lived  under  this  kind  of  organization.  And  in  studying  the 
ancient  barbarian  codes,  as  well  as  the  laws  and  customs  of 
the  confederations  of  village  communes  among  the  Kabyles, 
Mongols,  Hindoos,  Africans,  etc.,  which  still  exist,  it  becomes 
possible  to  reconstitute  in  its  entirety  that  form  of  society 
which  was  the  starting  point  of  our  present  civilization. 

Let  us,  therefore,  cast  a  glance  on  that  institution. 


Ill 

The    village    community    was    composed,    as    it    still    is,    of 
separate  families ;  but  the  families  of  a  village  possessed  the 


8  KROPOTKIN 

land  in  common.  They  looked  upon  the  land  as  their  com- 
mon patrimony,  and  allotted  it  according  to  the  size  of  the 
families.  Hundreds  of  millions  of  men  still  live  under  this 
system  in  eastern  Europe,  India,  Java,  etc.  It  is  the  same 
sj'stem  that  Russian  peasants  have  established  nowadays, 
when  the  State  left  them  free  to  occupy  the  immense  Siberian 
territory  as  they  thought  best. 

At  first,  also,  the  cultivation  of  the  land  was  done  in  com- 
mon, and  this  custom  still  obtains  in  many  places  —  at  least, 
the  cultivation  of  certain  plots  of  land.  As  to  deforestation 
and  clearings  made  in  the  woods,  construction  of  bridges, 
building  of  forts  and  turrets  which  served  as  refuge  in  case 
of  invasion,  the  work  was  done  in  common, —  as  it  still  is 
by  hundreds  of  millions  of  peasants,  wherever  the  village  com- 
mune has  resisted  State  encroachments.  But  consumption, 
to  use  a  modern  expression,  already  took  place  by  family  — 
each  having  its  own  cattle,  kitchen  garden,  and  provisions; 
the  means  of  hoarding  and  transmitting  wealth  accumulated 
by  inheritance  already  existed. 

In  all  its  business,  the  village  commune  was  sovereign. 
Local  custom  was  law,  and  the  plenary  council  of  all  chiefs 
of  families  —  men  and  women  —  was  judge,  the  only  judge, 
in  civil  and  criminal  affairs.  When  one  of  the  inhabitants, 
complaining  of  another,  planted  his  knife  in  the  ground  at 
the  spot  where  tlie  commune  was  wont  to  assemble,  the  com- 
mune liad  to  "  find  the  sentence  "  according  to  local  custom, 
after  the  fact  had  been  proved  by  the  jurors  of  both  litigant 
parties. 

Time  would  fail  me  were  I  to  tell  you  everything  of  in- 
terest presented  by  this  stage.  Suffice  it  for  me  to  observe 
that  all  institutions  which  States  took  possession  of  later  on 
for  the  benefit  of  minorities,  all  notions  of  right  wliich  we 
find  in  our  codes  (mutilated  to  the  advantage  of  minorities), 
and  all  forms  of  judicial  ])roc('diiri',  in  as  far  as  they  offer 
guarantees  to  tlie  individual,  had  their  origin  in  the  village 
community.  Thus,  when  we  imagine  we  have  made  great 
progress  —  in  introducing  the  jury,  for  example, —  we  have 
only  returned  to  the  institution  of  the  barbarians,  after  hav- 


KROPOTKIN  9 

ing  modified  it  to  the  advantage  of  the  ruling  classes.     Ro- 
man law  was  only  superposed  upon  customary  law. 

The  sentiment  of  national  unity  was  developing  at  the 
same   time,   by   great    free    federations    of   village    communes. 

Based  on  the  possession  and  very  often  on  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil  in  common,  sovereign  as  judge  and  legislator  of 
customary  law,  the  village  community  satisfied  most  needs 
of  the  social  being.  But  not  all  his  needs, —  there  were  still 
others  to  be  satisfied.  However,  the  spirit  of  the  age  was 
not  for  calling  upon  a  government  as  soon  as  a  new  need 
was  felt.  It  was,  on  the  contrary,  to  take  the  initiative  one- 
self, to  unite,  to  league,  to  federate,  to  create  an  understand- 
ing, great  or  small,  numerous  or  restricted,  which  would  cor- 
respond to  the  new  need.  And  society  at  that  time  was  liter- 
ally covered,  as  by  a  network,  with  sworn  fraternities,  guilds 
for  mutual  suport,  "  con-jurations,"  within  and  without  the 
village,  and  in  the  federation. 

We  can  observe  this  stage  and  spirit  at  work  even  to-day, 
among  many  a  barbarian  federation  having  remained  outside 
modern  States  modelled  on  the  Roman  or  rather  the  Byzan- 
tine type.  Thus,  to  take  an  example  among  many  others,  the 
Kabyles  have  retained  their  village  community  with  the  powers 
I  have  just  mentioned.  But  man  feels  the  necessity  of  ac- 
tion outside  the  narrow  limits  of  his  hamlet.  Some  like  to 
wander  about  in  quest  of  adventure,  in  the  capacity  of  mer- 
chants. Some  take  to  a  craft,  "  an  art,"  of  some  kind. 
And  these  merchants  and  artisans  unite  in  "  fraternities," 
even  when  they  belong  to  different  villages,  tribes,  and  con- 
federations. There  must  be  union  for  mutual  help  in  dis- 
tant adventures  or  mutually  to  transmit  the  mysteries  of  the 
craft,  and  they  unite.  They  swear  brotherhood,  and  prac- 
tice it  —  not  in  words  only,  but  in  deeds. 

Besides,  misfortune  can  overtake  anyone.  Who  knows  that 
to-morrow,  perhaps,  in  a  brawl,  a  man  gentle  and  peaceful 
as  a  rule  will  not  exceed  the  established  limits  of  good  be- 
liavior  and  sociability?  Very  heavy  compensation  will  then 
have  to  be  paid  to  tlie  insulted  or  wounded;  the  aggressor 
will  have  to  defend  himself  before  the  village  council  and 


10  KROPOTKIN 

prove  facts  on  the  oath  of  six,  ten,  or  twelve  "  con-jurors." 
This  is  another  reason   for  belonging  to  a  fraternity. 

Moreover,  man  feels  the  necessity  of  talking  politics  and 
perhaps  even  intriguing,  the  necessity  of  propagating  some 
moral  opinion  or  custom.  There  is,  also,  external  peace  to  be 
safeguarded;  there  are  alliances  to  be  concluded  with  other 
tribes,  federations  to  be  constituted  far  off,  the  idea  of  in- 
tertribal law  to  be  propagated.  Well,  then,  to  satisfy  all 
these  needs  of  an  emotional  and  intellectual  kind  the  Kabyles, 
the  Mongols,  the  Malays  do  not  turn  to  a  government :  they 
have  none.  Men  of  customary  law  and  individual  initiative, 
they  have  not  been  perverted  by  the  corrupted  idea  of  a 
government  and  a  church  supposed  to  do  everything.  They 
unite  directly.  They  constitute  sworn  fraternities,  political 
and  religious  societies,  unions  of  crafts  —  guilds  as  they 
were  called  in  the  Middle  Ages,  gofs  as  the  Kabyles  call 
them  to-day.  And  these  gofs  go  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
hamlets:  they  flourish  far  out  in  the  desert  and  in  foreign 
cities ;  and  fraternity  is  practiced  in  these  unions.  To  refuse 
to  help  a  member  of  your  gof,  even  at  the  risk  of  losing  all 
your  belongings  and  your  life,  is  an  act  of  treason  to  the 
fraternity,  and  exposes  the  traitor  to  be  treated  as  the  mur- 
derer of  a  "  brother." 

What  we  find  to-day  among  Kabyles,  Mongols,  Malays, 
etc.,  was  the  very  essence  of  life  of  the  so-called  barbarians 
in  Europe  from  the  fiftli  to  the  twelfth  centuries,  even  till 
the  fifteenth.  Under  the  name  of  guilds,  friendships,  uni- 
versitates,  etc.,  unions  swarmed  for  mutual  defence  and  for 
.solidarily  avenging  offences  against  each  member  of  the 
union;  for  substituting  compensation  instead  of  the  ven- 
geance of  "  an  eye  for  an  eye,"  followed  by  the  reception  of 
the  aggressor  into  the  fraternity;  for  the  exercise  of  crafts, 
for  helping  in  case  of  illness,  for  the  defence  of  territory, 
for  resisting  the  encroachments  of  nascent  authority,  for 
commerce,  for  the  practice  of  "  good-neiglihorshij),"  for  prop- 
aganda,—  for  everything,  in  a  word,  tliat  the  European,  edu- 
cated by  the  Rome  of  tlie  Csesars  and  the  Popes,  asks  of  the 
State  to-day.  It  is  even  very  doubtful  if  tlierc  existed  at 
that  time  one  single  man,  free  or  serf,  (save  those  who  were 


KROPOTKIN  11 

outlawed  by  their  own  fraternities)  who  did  not  belong  to 
some  fraternity  or  guild,  besides  his  commune. 

Scandinavian  sagas  sing  their  exploits.  The  devotion  of 
sworn  brothers  is  the  theme  of  the  most  beautiful  of  these 
epical  songs ;  whereas  the  Church  and  the  rising  kings,  rep- 
resentatives of  Byzantine  or  Roman  law  which  reappears, 
hurl  against  them  their  anathemas  and  decrees,  which  happily 
remain  a  dead  letter. 

The  whole  history  of  tliat  period  loses  its  significance,  and 
becomes  absolutely  incomprehensible,  if  we  do  not  take  the 
fraternities  into  account  —  these  unions  of  brothers  and  sis- 
ters that  spring  up  everywhere  to  satisfy  the  multiple  needs 
of  both  the  economic   and  the  emotional  life  of  man. 

Nevertheless  black  spots  accumulated  on  the  horizon. 
Other  unions  —  those  of  ruling  minorities  —  are  also  formed; 
and  they  endeavor,  little  by  little,  to  transform  these  free 
men  into  serfs,  into  subjects.  Rome  is  dead,  but  its  tra- 
dition revives ;  and  the  Christian  Church,  haunted  by  Oriental 
theocratic  visions,  gives  its  powerful  support  to  the  new 
powers  that  are  seeking  to  constitute  themselves. 

Far  from  being  the  sanguinary  beast  that  he  is  represented 
to  be  in  order  to  prove  the  necessity  of  ruling  over  him,  man 
has  always  loved  tranquillity  and  peace.  He  fights  rather  by 
necessity  than  by  ferocity,  and  prefers  his  cattle  and  his 
land  to  the  profession  of  arms.  Therefore,  hardly  had  the 
great  migration  of  barbarians  begun  to  abate,  hardly  had 
hordes  and  tribes  more  or  less  cantoned  themselves  on  their 
respective  lands,  than  we  see  the  care  of  the  defence  of  terri- 
tory against  new  waves  of  immigrants  confided  to  a  man  who 
engages  a  small  band  of  adventurers,  men  hardened  in  wars, 
or  brigands,  to  be  his  followers ;  while  the  great  mass  raises 
cattle  or  cultivates  the  soil.  And  this  defender  soon  begins 
to  amass  wealth.  He  gives  a  horse  and  armor  (very  dear 
at  that  time)  to  the  poor  man,  and  reduces  him  to  servitude; 
he  begins  to  conquer  the  germ  of  military  power.  On  the 
other  hand,  little  by  little,  tradition,  which  constituted  law 
in  those  times,  is  forgotten  by  the  masses.  There  remains 
only   an   occasional   old   man   who   keeps   in   his   memory   the 


12  KROPOTKIN 

verses  and  songs  which  tell  of  the  "  precedents  "  of  which 
customary  law  consists,  and  recites  them  on  great  festival 
days  before  the  commune.  And  little  by  little  some  families 
made  a  specialty,  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  of  re- 
taining these  songs  and  verses  in  their  memory  and  of  pre- 
serving "  the  law  "  in  its  purity.  To  them  villagers  apply  for 
judgment  of  differences  in  intricate  cases,  especially  when  two 
villages  or  confederations  refuse  to  accept  the  decisions  of  ar- 
bitrators taken  from  their  midst. 

The  germ  of  princely  or  royal  authority  is  already  sown 
in  these  families;  and  the  more  I  study  the  institutions  of 
that  time,  the  more  I  see  that  the  knowledge  of  customary  law 
did  far  more  to  constitute  that  authority  than  the  power  of 
the  sword.  Man  allowed  himself  to  be  enslaved  far  more 
by  his  desire  to  "  punish  according  to  law  "  than  by  direct 
military  conquest. 

And  gradually  the  first  "  concentration  of  powers,"  the  first 
mutual  insurance  for  domination  —  that  of  the  judge  and  the 
military  chief  —  grew  up  to  the  detriment  of  the  village  com- 
mune. A  single  man  assumed  these  two  functions.  He  sur- 
rounded himself  with  armed  men  to  put  his  judicial  decisions 
into  execution;  he  fortified  himself  in  his  turret;  he  accumu- 
lated the  wealth  of  the  epoch,  viz.,  bread,  cattle,  and  iron, 
for  his  family;  and  little  by  little  he  forced  his  rule  upon  the 
neighboring  peasants.  The  scientific  man  of  the  age,  that 
is  to  say  the  witch-doctor  or  priest,  lost  no  time  in  bringing 
his  support  and  in  sharing  the  chief's  domination ;  or  else,  add- 
ing tlie  sword  to  his  power  of  redoubtable  magician,  he  seized 
the  domination  for  his  own  account. 

A  course  of  lectures,  rather  than  a  simple  lecture,  would 
be  needed  to  deal  thoroughly  with  this  subject,  so  full  of  new 
teachings,  and  to  tell  how  free  men  gradually  became  serfs, 
forced  to  work  for  the  lay  or  clerical  lord  of  the  manor;  how 
authority  was  constituted,  in  a  tentative  way,  over  villages 
and  boroughs;  how  ])casants  leagiiod,  revolted,  struggled,  to 
fight  the  advancing  domination,  and  how  the}-  succumbed  in 
those  struggles  against  the  strong  castle  walls  and  the  men  in 
armor  wlio  defended  them. 


KROPOTKIN  13 

Suffice  it  for  me  to  say  that  during  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries  Europe  seemed  to  be  drifting  straight  towards  the 
constitution  of  those  barbarous  kingdoms  such  as  we  now 
discover  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  or  those  Eastern  theocracies 
whicli  we  know  through  history.  This  could  not  take  place 
in  a  day;  but  the  germs  of  those  little  kingdoms  and  those 
little  theocracies  were  already  there  and  were  developing 
more  and  more. 

Happily,  the  "  barbarian  "  spirit  —  Scandinavian,  Saxon, 
Celt,  German,  Slav  —  that  had  led  men  during  seven  or  eight 
centuries  to  seek  for  the  satisfaction  of  their  needs  in  in- 
dividual initiative  and  in  free  agreement  of  fraternities  and 
guilds,  happily  that  spirit  still  lived  in  the  villages  and  bor- 
oughs. The  barbarians  allowed  tliemselves  to  be  enslaved, 
they  worked  for  a  master;  but  their  spirit  of  free  action  and 
free  agreement  was  not  yet  corrupted.  Their  fraternities 
flourished  more  than  ever,  and  the  Crusades  had  but  roused 
and  developed  them  in  the  West. 

Then  the  revolution  of  the  commune,  long  since  prepared 
by  that  federative  spirit  and  born  of  the  union  of  sworn 
fraternity  with  the  village  community,  burst  forth  in  the 
twelfth  century  with  a  striking  spontaneity  all  over  Europe. 

This  revolution,  which  the  mass  of  university  historians  pre- 
fer to  ignore,  saved  Europe  from  the  calamity  with  which  it 
was  menaced.  It  arrested  the  evolution  of  theocratic  and 
despotic  monarchies,  in  which  our  civilisation  would  prob- 
ably have  gone  down  after  a  few  centuries  of  pompous  ex- 
pansion, as  the  civilisation  of  Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  and 
Babylon  had  done.  This  revolution  opened  up  a  new  phase 
of  life,  that  of  the  free  communes. 


IV 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  modern  historians,  nurtured 
as  they  are  in  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  law,  and  accustomed 
to  look  to  Roman  law  for  the  origin  of  every  political  institu- 
tion, are  incapable  of  understanding  the  spirit  of  the  com- 
munalist  movement  of  the  twelfth  century.  This  manly  af- 
firmation  of   the    rights    of   the   individual,   who   managed   to 


14  KROPOTKIN 

constitute  Society  through  the  federation  of  individuals,  vil- 
lages, and  towns,  was  an  absolute  negation  of  that  central- 
ising spirit  of  ancient  Rome  which  penetrates  all  historical 
conceptions  of  present-day  university  teaching. 

The  uprising  of  the  twelfth  century  cannot  even  be  attrib- 
uted to  any  personality  of  mark,  or  to  any  central  institution. 
It  is  a  natural,  anthropological  phasis  of  human  develop- 
ment; and,  as  such,  it  belongs  to  human  evolution,  like  the 
tribe  and  the  village-community  periods,  but  to  no  nation  in 
particular,  to  no  special  region  of  Europe,  and  it  is  the  work 
of  no  special  hero. 

This  is  why  university  science,  which  is  based  upon  Roman 
law,  centralisation,  and  hero-worship,  is  absolutely  incapable 
of  understanding  the  substance  of  that  movement,  which  came 
from  beneath.  In  France,  Augustin  Thierry  and  Sismondi, 
who  both  wrote  in  the  first  half  of  this  century  and  who  had 
really  understood  that  period,  have  had  no  followers  up  to 
the  present  time;  and  now  only  M.  Lachaire  timidly  tries  to 
follow  the  lines  of  research  indicated  by  the  great  historian 
of  tlie  Merovingian  and  the  communalist  period  (Augustin 
Thierry).  This  is  why,  in  Germany,  the  awakening  of  stud- 
ies of  this  period  and  a  vague  comprehension  of  its  spirit 
are  only  just  now  coming  to  the  front.  And  this  is  why,  in 
England,  one  finds  a  true  comprehension  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury in  tlie  poet  William  Morris  ratlier  tlian  amongst  the  his- 
torians,—  Green  (in  the  later  part  of  his  life)  having  been 
the  only  one  who  was  capable  of  understanding  it  at  all. 

The  commune  of  the  Middle  Ages  takes  its  origin,  on  the 
one  hand,  from  the  village  community,  on  the  other  from 
those  thousands  of  fraternities  and  guilds  which  were  con- 
stituted outside  territorial  unions.  It  was  a  federation  of 
these  two  kinds  of  unions,  dcveloj^ed  under  tlie  protection 
of  the  fortified  enclosure  and  tlie  turrets  of  the  city. 

In  many  a  region  it  was  a  natural  growth.  Elsewhere  — 
and  this  is  the  rule  in  Western  Europe  —  it  was  the  result 
of  a  revolution.  AVhcn  the  inhabitants  of  a  borough  felt 
themselves  sufficiently  protected  by  their  walls,  they  made  a 
"  con-juration."     They  mutually  took  the   oath   to  put  aside 


KROPOTKIN  16 

all  pending  questions  concerning  feuds  arisen  from  insults, 
assaults,  or  wounds,  and  they  swore  that  henceforth  in  the 
quarrels  that  should  arise  they  would  never  again  have  re- 
course to  personal  revenge  or  to  a  judge  other  than  the  syn- 
dics nominated  by  themselves  in  the  guild  and  the  city. 

This  was  long  since  the  regular  practice  in  every  art  or 
good-neighborship  guild,  in  every  sworn  fraternity.  In  every 
village  commune  such  had  formerly  been  the  custom,  be- 
fore bishop  or  kinglet  had  succeeded  in  introducing  —  and 
later  in  enforcing  —  his  judge.  Now  the  hamlets  and  the 
parishes  which  constituted  the  borough,  as  well  as  all  the 
guilds  and  fraternities  that  had  developed  there,  considered 
tliemselves  a  single  amitas.  They  named  their  judges  and 
swore  permanent  union  between  all  these  groups. 

A  charter  was  hastily  drawn  up  and  accepted.  In  case 
of  need  they  sent  for  the  copy  of  a  charter  from  some  small 
neighboring  commune  (we  know  hundreds  of  these  charters 
to-day),  and  the  commune  was  constituted.  The  bishop  or 
prince,  who  had  up  till  then  been  judge  of  the  commune  and 
had  often  become  more  or  less  its  master,  had  only  to  recog- 
nize the  accomplished  fact,  or  else  to  fight  the  young  "  con- 
juration "  by  force  of  arms.  Often  the  king  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  prince  who  tried  to  gain  superiority  over  other  princes, 
and  whose  coffers  were  always  empty  — "  granted  "  the  char- 
ter, for  ready  monej'-.  He  thus  renounced  imposing  his  judge 
on  the  commune,  while  giving  himself  importance  before  other 
feudal  lords.  But  this  was  in  nowise  the  rule:  hundreds  of 
communes  lived  without  any  other  sanction  than  their  own 
good   pleasure,  their  ramparts,  and   their   lances. 

In  a  hundred  years  this  movement  spread,  with  striking 
unity,  to  the  whole  of  Europe, —  by  imitation,  observe  well, 
—  including  Scotland,  France,  the  Netherlands,  Scandinavia, 
Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  Poland,  and  Russia.  And  to-day, 
when  we  compare  the  charters  and  internal  organisations  of 
French,  English,  Scotch,  Irish,  Scandinavian,  German,  Bo- 
hemian, Russian,  Swiss,  Italian,  and  Spanish  communes,  we 
are  struck  with  the  almost  complete  sameness  of  these  char- 
ters and  of  the  organisation  which  grew  up  under  the  shelter 


16  KROPOTKIN 

of  these  "  social  contracts."  What  a  striking  lesson  for  Ro- 
manists and  Hegelists  who  know  no  other  means  to  obtain 
a  similarity  of  institutions  than  servitude  before  the  law ! 

From  the  Atlantic  to  the  middle  course  of  the  Volga,  and 
from  Norway  to  Italy,  Europe  was  covered  with  similar 
communes  —  some  becoming  populous  cities  like  Florence, 
Venice,  Nuremberg,  or  Novgorod,  others  remaining  boroughs 
of  a  hundred  or  even  twenty  families,  but  nevertheless 
treated  as  equals  by  their  more  or  less  prosperous  sisters. 

Organisms  full  of  vigor,  the  communes  evidently  grew  dis- 
similar in  their  evolution.  Geographical  position,  the  char- 
acter of  external  commerce,  the  obstacles  to  be  vanquished 
outside,  gave  every  commune  its  own  history.  But  for  all, 
the  principle  was  the  same.  Pskov  in  Russia  and  Brugge 
in  Flanders,  a  Scotch  borough  of  three' hundred  inhabitants 
and  rich  Venice  with  its  islands,  a  borough  in  the  North  of 
France  or  in  Poland  and  Florence  the  Beautiful  represent 
the  same  amitas, —  the  same  fellowship  of  village  communes 
and  of  associated  guilds,  the  same  constitution  in  its  general 
outline. 

Generally,  the  town,  whose  enclosure  grows  in  length  and 
breadth  with  the  population  and  surrounds  itself  with  higher 
and  higher  towers,  each  tower  erected  by  such  and  such  a 
parish  or  such  a  guild  and  having  its  own  individual  character, 
—  generally,  I  say,  the  town  is  divided  into  four,  five,  or  six 
districts  or  sections,  which  radiate  from  tlic  citadel  to  the 
ramparts.  In  preference  each  of  these  districts  is  inhabited 
by  one  "  art  "  or  craft,  whereas  new  trades  —  the  "  young 
arts  " —  occupy  the  suburbs,  which  will  soon  be  enclosed  in 
a  new  fortified  circle. 

The  street,  or  parish,  represents  a  territorial  unit,  corre- 
sponding to  the  ancient  village  community.  Each  street  or 
))arish  has  its  popular  assembly,  its  forum,  its  popular  tri- 
bunal, its  elected  priest,  militia,  banner,  and  often  its  seal 
as  a  symbol  of  sovereignty.  It  is  federated  with  other  streets, 
but  it  nevertheless  keeps  its  independence. 

The  professional  unit,  which  often  corresponds,  or  nearly 


KROPOTKIN  17 

so,  with  the  district  or  section,  is  the  guild  —  the  trade  union. 
This  union  also  retains  its  saints,  its  assembly,  its  forum, 
its  judges.  It  has  its  treasury,  its  landed  property,  its  militia 
and  banner.  It  also  has  its  seal,  and  it  remains  sovereign. 
In  case  of  war,  should  it  think  right,  its  militia  will  march 
and  join  forces  with  those  of  other  guilds,  and  it  will  plant 
its  banner  side  by  side  with  the  great  banner,  or  carosse  (cart), 
of  the  city. 

And  lastly,  the  city  is  the  union  of  districts,  streets,  parishes, 
and  guilds,  and  it  has  its  plenary  assembly  of  all  inhabit- 
ants in  the  large  forum,  its  great  belfry,  its  elected  judges, 
its  banner  for  rallying  the  militia  of  the  guilds  and  districts. 
It  negotiates  as  a  sovereign  with  other  cities,  federates  with 
whom  it  likes,  concludes  national  and  foreign  alliances.  Thus 
the  English  "  Cinque  Ports  "  around  Dover  are  federated 
with  French  and  Netherland  ports  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Channel;  the  Russian  Novgorod  is  the  ally  of  Scandinavian, 
Germanic  Hansa,  and  so  on.  In  its  external  relations,  every 
city  possesses  all  the  prerogatives  of  the  modern  State;  and 
from  that  time  forth  is  constituted,  by  free  contracts,  that  body 
of  agreements  which  later  on  became  known  as  International 
Law,  and  was  placed  under  the  sanction  of  public  opinion 
of  all  cities,  while  later  on  it  was  more  often  violated  than 
respected  by  the  States. 

How  often  a  city,  not  being  able  to  decide  a  dispute  in  a 
complicated  case,  sends  for  "  finding  the  sentence  "  to  a 
neighboring  city !  How  often  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  time 
—  arbitration,  rather  than  the  judge's  authority  —  is  mani- 
fested in  the  fact  of  two  communities  taking  a  third  as  ar- 
bitrator ! 

Trade  unions  behave  in  the  same  way.  They  carry  on 
their  commercial  and  trade  affairs  beyond  the  cities  and  make 
treaties,  without  taking  their  nationalities  into  account.  And 
when,  in  our  ignorance,  we  talk  boastingly  of  our  international 
workers'  congresses  we  forget  that  international  trade  con- 
gresses and  even  apprentices'  congresses  were  already  held 
in  the  fifteenth  century. 


18  KROPOTKIN 

Lastly,  the  city  either  defends  itself  against  aggressors 
and  wages  its  own  stubborn  wars  against  neighboring  feudal 
lords,  nominating  each  year  one  or  rather  two  military  com- 
manders of  its  militias,  or  else  accepting  a  "  military  de- 
fender " —  a  prince  or  duke  —  who  is  chosen  by  the  city  for 
a  year,  and  whom  it  can  dismiss  when  it  pleases.  It  usually 
delivers  up  to  this  military  defender  the  produce  of  judicial 
fines  for  the  maintenance  of  his  soldiers ;  but  it  forbids  him 
to  interfere  with  the  business  of  the  city.  Or  lastly,  too 
feeble  to  emancipate  itself  entirely  from  its  neighbors,  the 
feudal  vultures,  the  city  will  retain,  as  a  more  or  less  per- 
manent military  protector,  a  bishop  or  a  prince  of  some  family 
—  Guelf  or  Ghibelline  in  Italy,  from  the  family  of  Rurik  in 
Russia  or  of  Olgerd  in  Lithuania.  But  it  will  watch  with 
jealousy  that  the  bishop's  or  prince's  authority  shall  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  soldiers  encamped  in  the  castle.  It  will 
even  forbid  them  to  enter  the  town  without  permission.  You 
no  doubt  know  that  even  at  the  present  day  the  Queen  of 
England  cannot  enter  the  City  of  London  without  the  Lord 
Mayor's  permission. 

I  should  like  to  speak  to  you  at  length  about  the  economic 
life  of  cities  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  I  am  obliged  to  pass 
it  over  in  silence.  It  was  so  varied  that  it  would  need  rather 
full  development.  Suffice  it  to  remark  that  internal  com- 
merce was  always  carried  on  by  the  guilds,  not  by  isolated 
artisans,  the  prices  being  fixed  by  mutual  agreement;  that 
at  the  beginning  of  that  period,  external  commerce  was 
carried  on  exclusively  by  the  city;  that  commerce  only  be- 
came the  monopoly  of  the  merchants'  guild  later  on,  and  still 
later  of  isolated  individuals;  that  never  was  any  work  done 
on  Sunday,  or  on  Saturday  afternoon  (bathing  day)  ;  lastly, 
that  the  city  purcliased  the  chief  necessaries  for  the  life  of 
its  inhabitants  —  corn,  coal,  etc. —  and  delivered  these  to  the 
inhabitants  at  cost  price.  (This  custom  of  the  city  making 
purchases  of  grain  was  retained  in  Switzerland  till  the  middle 
of  our  century.)  In  fact,  it  is  proved  by  a  mass  of  docu- 
ments of  all  kinds  that  luimanity  lias  never  known,  either  be- 
fore  or   after,   a   period   of   relative    well-being   as    perfectly 


KROPOTKIN  19 

assured  to  all  as  existed  in  the  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  present  poverty,  insecurity,  and  over-work  were  abso- 
lutely unknown  then. 


With  these  elements  —  liberty,  organisation  from  simple  to 
complex,  production  and  exchange  by  trade  unions  (guilds), 
commerce  with  foreign  parts  carried  on  by  the  city  itself, 
and  the  buying  of  main  provisions  by  the  city  —  with  these 
elements,  the  towns  of  the  Middle  Ages,  during  the  first  two 
centuries  of  their  free  life,  became  centres  of  well-being  for 
all  the  inhabitants.  They  were  centres  of  opulence  and  civili- 
zation such  as  we  have  not  seen  since. 

Consult  documents  that  allow  of  establishing  the  rates  of 
wages  for  work  in  comparison  with  the  price  of  provisions 
(Rogers  has  done  it  for  England  and  a  great  number  of  writers 
have  done  it  for  Germany)  and  you  will  see  that  the  work 
of  the  artisan,  and  even  of  a  simple  day-laborer,  was  remu- 
nerated at  that  time  by  a  wage  not  even  reached  by  skilled 
workmen  nowadays.  The  account-books  of  the  University 
of  Oxford  and  of  certain  English  estates,  also  those  of  a 
great  number  of  German  and  Swiss  towns,  are  there  to  testify 
to  this. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  the  artistic  finish  and  the 
quantity  of  decorative  work  which  a  workman  of  those  days 
used  to  put  into  the  beautiful  work  of  art  he  did,  as  well  as 
into  the  simplest  thing  of  domestic  life,—  a  railing,  a  candle- 
stick, an  article  of  pottery, —  and  you  see  at  once  that  he 
did  not  know  the  pressure,  the  hurry,  the  overwork  of  our 
times.  He  could  forge,  sculpture,  weave,  embroider  at  his 
leisure,  as  but  a  very  small  number  of  artist-workers  can  do 
nowadays.  And  if  we  glance  over  the  donations  to  the 
churches  and  to  houses  which  belonged  to  the  parish,  to  the 
guild,  or  to  the  city,  be  it  in  works  of  art  —  in  decorative  panels, 
sculptures,  cast  or  wrought  iron  and  even  silver  work  —  or  in 
simple  mason's  or  carpenter's  work,  we  understand  what  degree 
of  well-being  those  cities  had  realized  in  their  midst.  We  can 
conceive  the  spirit  of  research  and  invention  that  prevailed. 


20  KROPOTKIN 

the  breath  of  liberty  that  inspired  their  works,  the  senti- 
ment of  fraternal  solidarity  that  grew  up  in  those  guilds  in 
which  men  of  the  same  craft  were  united  not  only  by  the 
mercantile  and  technical  side  of  a  trade  but  also  by  bonds 
of  sociability  and  fraternity.  Was  it  not,  in  fact,  the  guild- 
law  that  two  brothers  were  to  watch  at  the  bedside  of  every 
sick  brother ;  and  that  the  guild  would  take  care  of  burying 
the  dead  brother  or  sister  —  a  custom  which  called  for  devo- 
tion, in  those  times  of  contagious  diseases  and  plagues, — 
follow  him  to  the  grave,  and  take  care  of  his  widow  and 
children  ? 

Black  misery,  depression,  the  uncertainty  of  to-morrow 
for  the  greater  number,  which  characterize  our  modern  cities, 
were  absolutely  unknown  in  those  "  oases  sprung  up  in  the 
twelfth  century  in  the  middle  of  the  feudal  forest."  In  those 
cities,  under  the  shelter  of  their  liberties  acquired  through 
the  impulse  of  free  agreement  and  free  initiative,  a  whole  new 
civilization  grew  up  and  attained  such  expansion  that  the  like 
has  not  been  seen  since. 

All  modern  industry  comes  to  us  from  those  cities.  In 
three  centuries,  industries  and  arts  developed  there  to  such 
perfection  that  our  century  has  been  able  to  surpass  them 
only  in  rapidity  of  production,  but  rarely  in  quality  and  very 
rarely  in  beauty  of  the  produce.  In  the  higher  arts,  which 
we  try  in  vain  to  revive  to-day,  have  we  surpassed  tlie  beauty 
of  Raphael,  the  vigor  and  audacity  of  Michel  Angelo,  the 
science  and  art  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  the  poetry  and  language 
of  Dante,  or  the  architecture  to  which  we  owe  the  cathedrals 
of  Laon,  Rheims,  Cologne  ("  the  people  M^ere  its  masons  " 
Victor  Hugo  lias  said  so  well),  the  treasures  of  beauty  of 
Florence  and  Venice,  tlie  town  halls  of  Bremen  and  Prague, 
tlie  towers  of  Nuremberg  and  Pisa,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum^ 
All  these  great  conquests  of  art  were  the  product  of  that 
period. 

Do  you  wish  to  measure  the  progress  of  that  civilization 
at  a  glance?  Compare  tlie  dome  of  St.  Mark  in  Venice  to 
the  rustic  arch  of  the  Normans,  Raphael's  picture  to  the  naive 
embroideries  and  carpets  of  Baycux,  the  mathematical  and 
physical  instruments   and  clocks   of   Nuremberg  to  the  sand 


KROPOTKIN  21 

clocks  of  the  preceding  centuries,  Dante's  sonorous  language 
to  the  barbarous  Latin  of  the  tenth  century.  A  new  world 
has  opened  up  between  the  two ! 

Never,  with  the  exception  of  that  other  glorious  period 
of  ancient  Greece  (free  cities  again)  had  humanity  made  such 
a  stride  forward.  Never,  in  two  or  three  centuries,  had  man 
undergone  so  profound  a  change  or  so  extended  his  power 
over  the  forces  of  nature. 

You  may  perhaps  think  of  the  progress  of  civilization  in 
our  own  century,  which  is  ceaselessly  boasted  of.  But  in 
each  of  its  manifestations  it  is  but  the  child  of  the  civiliza- 
tion which  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  free  communes.  All  the 
great  discoveries  which  have  made  modern  science, —  the 
compass,  the  clock,  the  watch,  printing,  the  maritime  dis- 
coveries, gunpowder,  the  law  of  gravitation,  the  law  of  atmos- 
pheric pressure  of  which  the  steam-engine  is  but  a  develop- 
ment, the  rudiments  of  chemistry,  the  scientific  method  already 
pointed  out  by  Roger  Bacon  and  practised  in  Italian  uni- 
versities,—  where  do  all  these  come  from,  if  not  from  the 
free  cities  which  developed  under  the  shelter  of  communal 
liberties .'' 

But  you  may  say,  perhaps,  that  I  forget  the  conflicts,  the 
internal  struggles,  of  which  the  history  of  these  communes  is 
full, —  the  street  tumults,  the  ferocious  battles  sustained 
against  the  landlords,  the  insurrections  of  "  young  arts  " 
against  the  "  ancient  arts,"  the  blood  that  was  shed  and  the 
reprisals  which  took  place  in  these  struggles. 

I  forget  nothing.  But,  like  Leo  and  Botta,  the  two  his- 
torians of  mediaeval  Italy,  like  Sismondi,  like  Ferrari,  Gino 
Capponi,  and  so  many  others,  I  see  that  these  struggles  were 
the  guarantee  itself  of  free  life  in  a  free  city.  I  perceive 
a  renewal  of  and  a  new  flight  towards  progress  after  each 
one  of  these  struggles.  After  describing  these  struggles  and 
conflicts  in  detail,  and  after  measuring  the  immensity  of 
progress  realized  while  these  struggles  stained  the  streets  with 
blood, —  the  well-being  assured  to  all  the  inhabitants,  and  the 
renovation  of  civilization, —  Leo  and  Botta  conclude  with  this 
thought,  so  true,  which  often  comes  to  my  mind: 


22  KROPOTKIN 

"  A  commune  only  then  represents  the  picture  of  a  moral 
whole,  only  then  appears  universal  in  its  behavior,  like  the 
human  mind  itself,  when  it  has  admitted  conflict  and  opposi- 
tion in  its  midst." 

Yes,  conflict,  freely  thrashed  out,  without  an  external 
power,  the  State,  throwing  its  immense  weight  into  the  balance, 
in  favor  of  one  of  the  struggling  forces. 

Like  those  two  authors,  I  also  think  that  "  far  more  misery 
has  often  been  caused  by  imposing  peace,  because  in  such 
cases  contradictory  things  were  forcibly  allied  in  order  to 
create  a  general  politic  order,  and  by  sacrificing  individuali- 
ties and  little  organisms  in  order  to  absorb  them  in  a  vast 
body  without  color  and  without  life." 

This  is  why  the  communes  —  as  long  as  they  themselves 
did  not  strive  to  become  States  and  to  impose  submission 
around  them,  so  as  to  create  "  a  vast  body  without  color  or 
life " —  always  grew  up,  always  came  out  younger  and 
stronger  after  every  struggle;  this  is  why  they  flourished  at 
the  sound  of  arms  in  the  street,  while  two  centuries  later  that 
same  civilization  was  crumbling  at  the  noise  of  wars  brought 
about  by  States. 

In  the  commune,  the  struggle  was  for  the  conquest  and 
maintenance  of  the  liberty  of  the  individual,  for  the  principle 
of  federation,  for  the  right  to  unite  and  act;  whereas  the 
wars  of  the  States  aimed  to  destroy  these  liberties,  to  sub- 
jugate the  individual,  to  annihilate  free  agreement,  to  unite 
men  in  one  and  the  same  servitude  before  the  king,  the  judge, 
the  priest,  and  the  State. 

There  lies  all  the  difFerence.  There  are  struggles  and  con- 
flicts that  kill,  and  there  are  those  that  launch  humanity 
forwards. 

VI 

In  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century,  modern  barbarians 
come  and  destroy  the  whole  civilization  of  the  cities  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  These  barbarians  do  not  completely  annihilate 
it;  they  cannot  do  so,  but  at  least  they  check  it  in  its  progress 
for  two  or  three  centuries.     They  drive  it  in  a  new  direction. 

They    fetter    the    individ\ial,    they    take    all    his    liberties 


KROPOTKIN  23 

away,  they  order  him  to  forget  the  unions  which  formerly 
were  based  on  free  initiative  and  free  agreement,  and  their 
aim  is  to  level  the  whole  of  society  in  the  same  submission 
to  the  master.  They  destroy  all  bonds  between  men,  by  de- 
claring that  State  and  Church  alone  must  lienceforth  con- 
stitute the  union  between  the  subjects  of  a  State  —  that  only 
Church  and  State  have  the  mission  of  watching  over  industrial, 
commercial,  judiciary,  artistic,  and  passional  interests,  for 
which  men  of  the  twelfth  century  had  been  wont  to  unite 
directly. 

And  who  are  those  barbarians?  It  is  the  State, —  the  Triple 
Alliance,  constituted  at  last,  of  the  military  chief,  the  Roman 
judge,  and  the  priest,  the  three  forming  a  mutual  insurance 
for  domination;  the  three  united  in  one  power  that  will  com- 
mand in  the  name  of  the  interests  of  society  and  will  crush 
that  society. 

We  naturally  ask  ourselves  how  these  new  barbarians  could 
get  the  mastery  over  communes,  formerly  so  powerful. 
Whence  did  they  get  their  strength  for  conquest.'' 

That  strength  they  first  of  all  found  in  the  village.  As 
the  communes  of  ancient  Greece  did  not  manage  to  abolish 
slavery,  so  the  communes  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  able 
to  emancipate  the  peasant  from  serfdom  at  the  same  time 
that  they  emancipated  the  citizen. 

It  is  true  that  nearly  everywhere,  at  the  time  of  his  emanci- 
pation, the  citizen  —  himself  an  artisan-cultivator  —  had  tried 
to  induce  the  country  folk  to  help  in  his  enfranchisement. 
Durng  two  centuries,  the  citizens  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  Ger- 
many carried  on  a  stubborn  war  against  feudal  lords. 
Prodigies  of  heroism  and  perseverance  were  displayed  by 
citizens  in  that  war  against  the  feudal  castles.  They  ex- 
hausted themselves  to  become  masters  of  the  castles  of  feudal- 
ism and  to  cut  down  the  feudal  forest  that  enveloped  them. 

But  they  onl}'^  half  succeeded.  Then,  tired  of  war,  they 
made  peace  over  the  head  of  the  peasant.  To  buy  peace  they 
delivered  the  peasant  up  to  the  lord,  outside  the  territory 
conquered  by  the  commune.  In  Italy  and  Germany  they 
even  ended  by  recognizing  the  lord  as  fellow  citizen  on  con- 


24  KROPOTKIN 

dition  that  he  should  reside  within  the  commune;  in  other 
parts  they  ended  by  sharing  his  domination  over  the  peasant. 
And  the  lord  avenged  himself  on  these  common  people,  whom 
he  hated  and  despised,  by  drenching  their  streets  in  blood 
during  the  struggles  of  noble  families  and  acts  of  revenge 
that  were  not  carried  before  communal  judges  and  syndics, 
whom  the  nobles  despised,  but  were  settled  by  the  sword  in 
the  street. 

The  nobles  demoralised  the  towns  by  their  munificence, 
their  intrigues,  their  great  style  of  living,  by  their  education 
received  at  the  bishop's  or  the  king's  court.  They  made  the 
citizens  espouse  their  family  struggles.  And  the  citizen  ended 
by  imitating  the  lord,  and  became  a  lord  in  his  turn,  enrich- 
ing himself,  he  too,  by  the  labor  of  serfs  encamped  in  the 
villages  outside  the  city  walls.  After  which  the  peasant  lent 
assistance  to  nascent  kings,  emperors,  tsars,  and  popes,  when 
they  began  to  build  their  kingdoms  and  to  bring  the  towns 
under  subjection.  When  not  marching  by  their  orders,  the 
peasant  left  them  free  to  act. 

It  is  in  the  country,  in  fortified  castles,  situated  in  the  midst 
of  rural  populations,  that  royalty  was  slowly  constituted.  In 
the  twelfth  century  it  existed  but  in  name,  and  to-day  we 
know  what  to  think  of  the  rogues,  chiefs  of  little  bands  of 
brigands,  Vvlio  adorned  themselves  with  the  title  of  king, 
which  after  all  (as  Augustin  Thierry  has  so  well  demon- 
strated) had  very  little  meaning  at  that  time;  in  fact,  the 
Norse  fishermen  had  their  "  Nets'  Kings,"  and  even  the 
beggars  had  their  "  Kings  " —  the  word  having  then  simply 
the  signification  of  "  temporary  leader." 

Slowly,  tentatively,  a  baron  more  powerful  or  more  cun- 
ning tlian  tlie  otliers  succeeded  liere  and  there  in  rising  above 
tlie  rest.  The  Church  no  doubt  bestirred  itself  to  support 
him.  And  by  force,  cunning,  money,  sword,  and  even  poison 
in  case  of  need,  one  of  tliese  feudal  barons  would  become 
great  at  the  expense  of  the  otliers.  But  it  was  never  in  tlie 
free  cities,  whicl)  had  tlieir  noisy  forum,  their  Tarpcian  rock, 
or  their  river  for  the  tyrants,  tliat  royal  authority  succeeded 
in  constituting  itself;  it  was  always  in  the  country,  in  the 
village. 


KROPOTKIN  25 

After  having  vainly  tried  to  constitute  this  authority  in 
Rheims  or  in  Lyons,  it  was  established  in  Paris, —  an  agglom- 
eration of  villages  and  boroughs  surrounded  by  a  rich  country, 
which  had  not  yet  known  the  life  of  free  cities;  it  was  estab- 
lished in  Westminster,  at  the  gates  of  populous  London  City ; 
it  was  established  in  the  Kremlin,  built  in  the  midst  of  rich 
villages  on  the  banks  of  the  Moskva,  after  having  failed  at 
Souzdal  and  Vladimir.  But  never  in  Novgorod  or  Pskov,  in 
Nuremberg  or  Florence,  could  royal  authority  be  consolidated. 

The  neighboring  peasants  supplied  them  with  grain,  horses, 
and  men ;  and  commerce  —  royal,  not  communal  —  increased 
the  wealth  of  the  growing  tyrants.  The  Church  looked  after 
their  interests.  It  protected  them,  came  to  their  succour  with 
its  treasure  chests ;  it  invented  a  saint  and  miracles  for  their 
royal  town.  It  encircled  with  its  veneration  Notre-Dame  of 
Paris  or  the  Virgin  of  Iberia  at  Moscow.  And  while  the 
civilization  of  free  cities,  emancipated  from  the  bishops,  took 
its  youthful  bound,  the  Church  worked  steadily  to  recon- 
stitute its  authority  by  the  intermediary  of  nascent  royalty; 
it  surrounded  with  its  tender  care,  its  incense,  and  its  ducats, 
the  family  cradle  of  the  one  whom  it  had  finally  chosen, 
in  order  to  rebuild  with  him,  and  through  him,  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal authority.  In  Paris,  Moscow,  Madrid,  and  Prague  you 
see  the  Church  bending  over  the  royal  cradle,  a  lighted  torch 
in  its  hand. 

Hard  at  work,  strong  in  its  State  education,  leaning  on  the 
man  of  will  or  cunning  whom  it  sought  out  in  any  class  of 
society,  learned  in  intrigue  as  well  as  in  Roman  and  Byzantine 
law,  you  see  the  Church  marching  without  respite  towards 
its  ideal:  the  Hebrew  King,  absolute,  but  obeying  the  high 
priest  - —  the  simple  secular  arm  of  ecclesiastical  power. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  long  work  of  the  two  con- 
spirators is  already  in  force.  A  king  already  rules  over  the 
barons,  his  rivals,  and  that  force  will  alight  on  the  free  cities 
to  crush  them  in  their  turn. 

Besides,  the  towns  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  not  what 

they  were  in  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  or  fourteenth  centuries. 

They  were  born  out  of  libertarian  revolution.     But  they 


26  KROPOTKIN 

had  not  the  courage  to  extend  their  ideas  of  equality,  either 
to  the  neighboring  rural  districts  or  even  to  those  citizens 
who  had  later  on  established  themselves  in  their  enclosures, 
refuges  of  liberty,  there  to  create  industrial  arts.  A  distinc- 
tion between  the  old  families  wlio  had  made  the  revolution 
of  the  twelfth  century  —  or  curtly,  "  the  families  " —  and  the 
others  who  established  themselves  later  on  in  the  city,  is 
to  be  met  with  in  all  towns.  The  old  "  Merchant  Guild  "  had 
no  desire  to  receive  the  new-comers.  It  refused  to  incor- 
porate the  "  young  arts  "  for  commerce.  And  from  simple 
clerk  of  the  city  it  became  the  go-between,  the  intermediary, 
who  enriched  itself  by  distant  commerce,  and  who  imported 
oriental  ostentation.  Later  on  the  "  Merchant  Guild  "  allied 
itself  to  the  lord  and  the  priest,  or  it  went  and  sought  the 
support  of  the  nascent  king,  to  maintain  its  monopoly,  its 
right  to  enrichment.  Having  thus  become  personal  instead 
of  communal,  commerce  killed  the  free  city. 

Besides,  the  guilds  of  ancient  trades,  of  which  the  city  and 
its  government  were  composed  at  the  outset,  would  not  recog- 
nise the  same  rights  to  the  young  guilds,  formed  later  on 
by  the  younger  trades.  Tliese  had  to  conquer  their  rights 
by  a  revolution.  And  that  is  what  they  did  everywhere. 
But  while  that  revolution  became,  in  most  large  cities,  the 
starting  of  a  renewal  of  life  and  arts  (this  is  well  seen  in 
Florence),  in  other  cities  it  ended  in  the  victory  of  the  richer 
orders  over  the  poorer  ones  —  of  the  "  fat  people  "  (popolo 
grasso)  over  the  "  low  people  "  {popolo  basso)  —  in  a  despotic 
crusliing  of  the  masses,  in  numberless  transportations  and  exe- 
cutions, especially  wlien  lords  and  priests  took  part  in  it. 

And  —  need  we  say  it?  —  it  was  "  the  defence  of  the  poorer 
orders  "  that  the  king,  who  had  received  Macchiavelli's 
lessons,  took  later  on  as  a  pretext  when  he  came  to  knock 
at  the  gates  of  the  free  cities ! 

And  then  the  cities  had  to  die,  because  the  ideas  them- 
selves of  men  had  changed.  The  teaching  of  canonical  and 
Roman  law  had  perverted  them. 

The  European  of  tlie  twelfth  century  was  essentially  a 
federalist, —  a  man   of   free   initiative,   of   free  agreement,   of 


KROPOTKIN  27 

unions  freely  consented  to.  He  saw  in  the  individual  the 
starting  point  of  all  society.  He  did  not  seek  salvation  in 
obedience;  he  did  not  ask  for  a  savior  of  society.  The  idea 
of  Christian  or  Koman  discipline  was  unknown  to  him. 

But  under  the  influence  of  the  Christian  Church,  always 
fond  of  authority,  always  zealous  to  impose  its  rule  on  the 
souls  and  especially  on  the  arms  of  the  faithful;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  under  the  influence  of  Roman  law,  which  already, 
since  the  twelfth  century,  invaded  the  courts  of  the  powerful 
lords,  the  kings,  and  the  popes,  and  soon  became  a  favorite 
study  in  the  universities, —  under  the  influence  of  these  two 
teachings,  which  agreed  so  well  although  they  were  enemies 
at  the  beginning,  the  minds  of  men  grew  depraved  in  propor- 
tion as  priest  and  legist  triumphed. 

Men  became  enamored  of  authority.  If  a  revolution  of  the 
lower  trades  was  accomplished  in  a  commune,  the  commune 
called  in  a  savior.  It  gave  itself  a  dictator,  a  municipal 
Caesar,  and  it  endowed  him  with  full  powers  to  exterminate 
the  opposite  party.  And  the  dictator  profited  by  it,  with  all 
the  refinement  of  cruelty  that  the  Church  or  the  examples 
which  were  brought  from  the  despotic  kingdoms  of  the  East 
inspired  him  with. 

The  Church,  of  course,  supported  that  Caesar.  Had  it  not 
always  dreamt  of  the  biblical  king,  who  kneels  before  the 
high  priest  and  is  his  docile  tool?  Had  it  not,  with  all  its 
might,  hated  the  ideas  of  rationalism  which  inspired  the  free 
towns  during  the  first  Renaissance, —  that  of  the  twelfth 
century, —  as  also  those  "  pagan  "  ideas  which  brought  man 
back  to  Nature  under  the  influence  of  the  rediscovery  of 
Greek  civilisation;  as  also,  later  on,  those  ideas  which  in  the 
name  of  primitive  Christianity  incited  men  against  the  pope, 
the  priest,  and  faith  in  general?  P'ire,  wheel,  gibbet  —  these 
weapons  so  dear  to  the  Church  in  all  times  —  were  put  into 
play  against  those  heretics.  And  whoever  was  the  tool, —  pope, 
king,  or  dictator, —  it  was  of  little  importance  to  the  Church, 
so  long  as  tlie  wheel  and  the  gibbet  worked  against  heretics. 

And  under  the  twofold  teaching  of  the  Roman  legist  and  the 
priest,  the  old  federalist  spirit,  the  spirit  of  free  initiative 
and   free   agreement,  was   dying  out  to  make   room   for   the 


28  KROPOTKIN 

spirit    of   discipline,    organisation,    and   pyramidal    authority. 
The  rich  and  the  poor  alike  asked  for  a  savior. 

And  when  the  savior  presented  himself, —  when  the  king, 
who  had  become  enriched  far  from  the  forum's  tumult,  in 
some  town  of  his  creation,  leaning  on  the  wealthy  Church, 
and  followed  by  vanquished  nobles  and  peasants, —  when  the 
king  knocked  at  the  city  gates,  promising  the  "  lower  orders  " 
his  mighty  protection  against  the  rich  and  the  obedient  rich 
his  protection  against  the  revolting  poor,  then  the  towns,  which 
themselves  were  already  undermined  by  the  canker  of  author- 
ity, had  no  longer  the  strength  to  resist.  They  opened  their 
gates  to  the  king. 

And  then  the  Mongols  had  conquered  and  devastated  eastern 
Europe  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  an  empire  was  spring- 
ing up  out  there  in  Moscow,  under  the  protection  of  the 
Tartar  Khans  and  the  Russian  Christian  Church.  The  Turks 
had  come  and  settled  in  Europe,  and  pushed  as  far  as  Vienna 
in  1453,  devastating  everything  on  their  path;  and  powerful 
States  were  being  constituted  in  Poland,  Bohemia,  Hungary, 
and  in  the  centre  of  Europe.  While  at  the  other  extremity, 
the  war  of  extermination  against  the  IMoors  in  Spain  allowed 
of  another  powerful  empire  to  constitute  itself  in  Castille  and 
Aragon,  supported  by  the  Roman  Church  and  the  Inquisition 
—  the  sword  and  the  stake. 

As  the  communes  themselves  were  becoming  little  States, 
these  little  States  were  inevitably  doomed  to  be  swallowed 
up  by  the  big  ones. 

VII 

The  victory  of  the  State  over  the  communes  and  the  fed- 
eralist institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  take  place 
straightway.  At  one  time  the  State  was  so  threatened  that 
its  victory  seemed   doubtful. 

A  great  popular  movement,  religious  in  form  and  expres- 
sion, but  eminently  communistic  in  its  aspirations  and  striving 
at  equality,  originated  in  tlie  towns  and  rural  parts  of  central 
Europe. 


KROPOTKIN  2d 

Already  in  the  fourteenth  century  (in  1358  in  France  and 
1381  in  England)  two  great  similar  movements  had  taken 
place.  Two  powerful  revolts,  that  of  the  Jacquerie  and  that 
of  Wat  Tyler,  had  shaken  society  to  its  foundations.  Both, 
however,  had  been  principally  directed  against  the  feudal 
lords.  Both  were  defeated;  but  the  peasant  revolt  in  Eng- 
land completely  put  an  end  to  serfdom,  and  the  Jacquerie  in 
France  so  cliecked  it  in  its  development  that  henceforth  the 
institution  of  serfdom  could  only  vegetate,  without  ever  attain- 
ing tlie  development  it  subsequently  attained  in  Germany 
and  in  eastern  Europe. 

Now,  in  the  sixteenth  century  a  similar  movement  took 
place  in  central  Europe.  Under  the  name  of  "  Hussite  "  in 
Bohemia,  "  Anabaptist "  in  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  the 
Netherlands,  and  of  "  Troubled  Times  "  in  Russia  (at  the 
beginning  of  the  next  century),  it  was  over  and  above  a 
struggle  against  feudal  lords  —  it  was  a  complete  revolt 
against  Church  and  State,  against  Canonic  and  Roman  law, 
in  the  name  of  primitive   Christianity. 

This  movement,  which  is  only  just  beginning  to  be  under- 
stood, was  for  many  years  travestied  by  State  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal historians. 

The  absolute  liberty  of  the  individual  —  who  must  only 
obey  the  commandments  of  his  conscience  —  and  Communism 
were  the  watchwords  of  this  revolt.  And  it  was  only  later, 
when  Church  and  State  succeeded  in  exterminating  its  most 
ardent  defenders,  and  juggled  with  it  to  their  own  profit, 
that  this  movement,  diminished  and  deprived  of  its  revolution- 
ary character,  became  Luther's  Reformation. 

It  began  by  Communist  Anarchism,  preached  and  in  some 
places  practised.  And  if  we  set  aside  the  religious  formulae, 
which  are  a  tribute  to  that  epoch,  we  find  in  it  the  very 
essence  of  the  current  of  ideas  which  Anarchism  represents  to- 
day: the  negation  of  all  law,  State  or  divine,  the  conscience 
of  each  individual  being  his  one  and  only  law;  the  commune, 
absolute  master  of  its  destinies,  retaking  its  lands  from 
feudal  lords,  and  refusing  all  personal  or  monetary  service 
to  the  State;  in  fact,  Communism  and  equality  put  into  prac- 


30  KROPOTKIN 

tice.  Moreover,  when  Denck,  one  of  the  philosophers  of  the 
Anabaptist  movement,  was  asked  if  he  did  not  at  least  recog- 
nise the  authority  of  the  Bible,  he  answered  that  the  only 
obligatory  rule  of  conduct  is  the  one  that  each  individual  finds, 
for  himself,  in  the  Bible.  And  yet  these  very  formulae,  so 
vague,  borrowed  from  ecclesiastical  slang,  this  authority  of 
"  the  book  "  from  which  it  is  so  easy  to  borrow  arguments  for 
and  against  Communism,  for  and  against  authority,  and  so 
uncertain  when  it  comes  clearly  to  define  what  liberty  is,  these 
very  religious  tendencies  of  the  revolt, —  did  they  not  already 
contain  the  germ  of  an  unavoidable  defeat? 

Originating  in  towns,  the  movement  soon  spread  to  the 
country.  The  peasants  refused  to  obey  anybody,  and  plant- 
ing an  old  shoe  on  a  pike  by  way  of  a  flag  they  took  back 
the  lands  which  tlie  lords  had  seized  from  the  village  com- 
munities; they  broke  their  bonds  of  serfdom,  drove  away 
priest  and  judge,  and  constituted  themselves  into  free  com- 
munes. And  it  was  only  by  the  stake,  the  wheel,  and  the 
gibbet,  it  was  only  by  the  massacre  of  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  peasants  in  a  few  years,  that  royal  or  imperial  power, 
allied  to  the  papal  or  reformed  church  (Luther  inciting  to 
massacre  peasants  more  violently  even  than  the  Pope),  put 
an  end  to  these  risings  tliat  had  for  a  moment  threatened  the 
constitution  of  nascent  States. 

Born  of  popular  Anabaptism,  the  Lutheran  Reformation, 
leaning  on  the  State,  massacred  the  people  and  crushed  the 
movement  from  wliich  it  originally  liad  derived  its  strength. 
The  survivors  of  this  immense  wave  of  thought  took  refuge 
in  the  communities  of  the  "  Moravian  Brotliers,"  who,  in  their 
turn,  were  destroyed  by  Church  and  State.  Those  among 
them  who  were  not  exterminated  sought  shelter,  some  in 
the  south-east  of  Russia,  others  in  Greenland,  where  to  this 
day  they  have  been  able  to  live  in  communities  and  to  refuse 
all  service  to  the  State. 

Henceforth,  the  State's  existence  was  secure.  The  lawyer, 
the  priest,  and  the  soldier-lord,  having  constituted  a  solid 
alliance  around  the  thrones,  could  carry  on  their  work  of 
anniliilation. 


KROPOTKIN  31 

Have  we  not  all  learned  at  school  that  the  State  rendered 
great  service  in  constituting  national  unions  on  the  ruins  of 
feudal  society, —  unions  made  impracticable  in  earlier  times 
by  the  rivalry  of  cities  ?  We  have  all  learned  it  in  school  and 
we  have  all  believed  it  in  manhood. 

And  nevertheless  to-day  we  learn  that,  in  spite  of  all  rival- 
ries, mediaeval  cities  had  already  worked  during  four  cen- 
turies to  constitute  these  unions  by  federation,  freely  con- 
sented to,  and  that  they  liad  fully  succeeded  in  that  work  of 
consolidation. 

The  Lombard  Union,  for  example,  included  the  cities  of 
upper  Italy  and  had  its  federal  treasury  in  safe  keeping 
in  Genoa  and  Venice.  Other  federations,  such  as  the  Tuscan 
Union,  the  Rhenan  Union  (comprising  sixty  towns),  the  fed- 
erations of  Westphalia,  of  Bohemia,  of  Servia,  of  Poland, 
and  of  Russian  towns,  covered  Europe.  At  the  same  time, 
the  commercial  union  of  the  Hansa  included  Scandinavian, 
German,  Polish,  and  Russian  towns  throughout  the  basin  of 
the  Baltic. 

All  the  elements,  as  well  as  the  fact  itself,  of  large  human 
agglomerations,   freely   constituted,   were   there   already. 

Do  you  wish  for  a  living  proof  of  these  groups  ?  You  have 
it  in  Switzerland.  There  the  union  asserted  itself  first  be- 
tween village  communes  (the  old  cantons),  in  the  same  way 
that  it  was  constituted  in  P'rance  in  the  Laonnais.  And 
as  in  Switzerland  the  separation  between  town  and  village 
was  never  so  great  as  it  was  for  towns  carrying  on  an  ex- 
tensive and  distant  commerce,  the  Swiss  towns  lent  a  hand 
to  the  peasant  insurrections  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
union  encompassed  both  towns  and  villages  and  constituted 
a  federation  that  still  exists  to-day. 

But  the  State,  by  its  very  essence,  cannot  tolerate  free 
federation;  because  the  latter  represents  that  nightmare  of 
the  legist,  "  the  State  within  the  State."  The  State  does 
not  recognize  a  freely  adopted  union  working  within  itself. 
It  only  deals  with  subjects.  The  State  alone,  and  its  prop 
the  Church,  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  of  being  the 
connecting  link  between  men. 

Consequently  the  State  must  perforce  annihilate  citjes  based 


32  KROPOTKIN 

on  direct  union  between  citizens.  It  must  abolish  all  union 
in  the  city,  abolish  the  city  itself,  abolish  all  direct  union 
between  cities.  For  the  federative  principle  it  must  substi- 
tute the  principle  of  submission  and  discipline.  Submission 
is  its  substance.  Without  this  principle  it  leaves  off  being 
the  State;  it  becomes  a  federation. 

And  the  sixteenth  century  —  century  of  carnage  and  wars 
—  is  entirely  summed  up  in  this  war  waged  by  the  growing 
States  against  the  cities  and  the  federations.  The  towns 
are  besieged,  taken  by  assault,  pillaged ;  tlieir  inhabitants  are 
decimated  or  transported.  The  State  is  victorious  all  along 
the  line. 

And  the  consequences   are  these. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  Europe  was  covered  by  rich  cities, 
whose  artisans,  masons,  weavers,  and  carvers  produced  mar- 
vels of  art,  whose  universities  laid  the  foundation  of  science, 
whose  caravans  travelled  over  continents,  and  whose  vessels 
ploughed  rivers  and  seas. 

What  was  left  of  them  two  centuries  later?  Towns  that 
had  numbered  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  and 
that  had  possessed  (it  was  so  in  Florence)  more  schools  and, 
in  the  communal  hospitals,  more  beds  per  inhabitant  than  are 
possessed  to-day  by  the  towns  best  endowed  in  this  respect, 
had  become  rotten  boroughs.  Their  inhabitants  having  been 
massacred  or  transported,  the  State  and  Churcli  were  seizing 
their  riches.  Industry  was  fading  under  the  minute  tutelage 
of  State  officials.  Commerce  was  dead.  The  very  roads  that 
formerly  united  the  cities  had  become  absolutely  impracti- 
cable in  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  State  spelt  warfare,  and  wars  were  devastating  Europe 
and  completing  the  ruin  of  those  towns  whicli  the  State  had 
not  yet  ruined  direct.  But  had  not  the  villages,  at  least, 
gained  by  State  centralisation.''  Certainly  not!  Read  what 
historians  tell  us  about  the  style  of  living  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts of  Scotland,  Tuscany,  and  Germany  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  compare  their  descriptions  of  that  time  with 
the  misery  of  England  at  the  beginning  of  1G48,  in  France 
under   the   "  sun-king "    Louis   XIV,   in   Germany,   in   Italy, 


KROPOTKIN  33 

everywhere,    after    a    hundred    years    of    State    domination. 

Misery  everywhere !  All  unanimously  recognize  it  and 
point  it  out.  Wherever  serfdom  had  been  abolished  it  was 
reconstituted  in  a  hundred  different  forms;  wherever  it  had 
not  yet  been  destroyed  it  was  shaped,  under  State  protection, 
into  a  ferocious  institution  bearing  all  the  characteristics  of 
antique  slavery,  or  even  worse. 

And  could  anything  else  evolve  out  of  this  State-produced 
misery,  the  State's  chief  anxiety  being  to  annihilate  the  vil- 
lage community  after  the  town,  to  destroy  all  bonds  existing 
between  peasants,  to  give  over  their  lands  to  be  pillaged  by 
the  rich,  and  to  subject  them,  each  individually,  to  the  func- 
tionary, the  priest  and  the  lord? 


VIII 

To  annihilate  the  independence  of  cities;  to  plunder  mer- 
chants' and  artisans'  rich  guilds ;  to  centralise  the  foreign 
trade  of  cities  into  its  hands  and  ruin  it;  to  seize  the  internal 
administration  of  guilds,  and  subject  home  trade,  as  well  as 
all  manufactures,  even  in  the  slightest  detail,  to  a  swarm  of 
functionaries,  and  by  these  means  kill  both  industry  and  arts; 
to  seize  upon  local  militias  and  all  municipal  administration; 
to  crush  the  weak  by  taxation  for  the  benefit  of  the  strong; 
and  to  ruin  countries  by  war, —  such  was  the  nascent  State's 
behavior  towards  urban  agglomerations  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries. 

The  same  tactics  were  evidently  employed  towards  villages 
and  peasants.  As  soon  as  the  State  felt  itself  strong  enough, 
it  destroyed  the  village  commune,  ruined  the  peasants  com- 
mitted to  its  mercy,  and  plundered  the  common  lands. 

Historians  and  economists  paid  by  the  State  have  taught  us 
that  the  village  commune,  having  become  an  obsolete  form 
of  land-ownership  obstructing  agricultural  progress,  was 
bound  to  disappear  by  the  action  of  natural  economic  forces. 
Politicians  and  bourgeois  economists  do  not  tire  of  repeat- 
ing  tliis    even   nowadays,   and    there    are   revolutionists    and 


34  KROPOTKIN 

socialists   (those  who  pretend  to  be  scientific)  who  recite  this 
fable  learned  in  school. 

Yet  a  more  odious  falsehood  has  never  been  affirmed  by 
science.  A  deliberate  falsehood,  for  history  swarms  with 
documents  amply  proving  to  those  who  wish  to  know  (in  the 
case  of  France  it  would  almost  suffice  to  read  Dalloz)  that 
the  village  commune  was  first  of  all  deprived  by  the  State  of 
its  privileges,  of  its  independence,  of  its  juridical  and  legis- 
lative powers ;  and  that  later  on  its  lands  were  either  simply 
stolen  by  the  rich  under  State  protection,  or  else  confiscated 
by  the  State  itself. 

Plundering  began  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  century  in 
France,  and  grew  apace  in  the  following  century.  As  early  as 
1659  the  State  took  the  communes  under  its  superior  pro- 
tection, and  we  need  only  read  Louis  XIV's  edict  of  1667 
to  learn  what  plundering  of  common  lands  took  place  at  that 
period.  "  Men  have  taken  possession  of  lands  when  it  suited 
them.  .  .  .  Lands  have  been  divided.  ...  In  order  to  plun- 
der the  communes  fictitious  debts  have  been  devised."  So 
said  the  "  Sun-King  "  in  this  edict, —  and  two  years  later 
he  confiscated  for  his  own  benefit  all  the  revenues  of  the  com- 
munes. This  is  what  is  called  in  scientific  language  a  "  nat- 
ural death." 

In  the  following  century  it  is  estimated  that  at  least  half 
the  communal  lands  were  simply  appropriated  by  the  aris- 
tocracy and  the  clergy  under  State  patronage.  And  yet  com- 
munes continued  to  exist  till  1787.  The  village  council  met 
under  the  elm,  granted  lands,  and  appointed  taxes  —  the 
documents  relating  to  this  are  to  be  found  in  Babeau  {Le 
village  sous  I'ancien  regime).  Turgot,  in  the  province  of 
which  he  was  governor,  found  the  village  councils  "  too  noisy  " 
and  abolished  them  during  his  governorsliij),  substituting 
for  them  assemblies  elected  among  the  well-to-do  of  the  vil- 
lage. In  1787,  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  the  State  made 
this  measure  general  in  its  application.  The  niir  was  abol- 
ished, and  thus  communal  affairs  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  few 
syndics,  elected  by  the  richest  bourgeois  and  peasants.  The 
"  Constituante  "  sanctioned  this  law  in  December,  1789;  and 


KROPOTKIN  85 

the  bourgeois,  substituting  themselves  for  the  nobles,  plun- 
dered what  remained  of  communal  lands.  Many  a  peasant 
revolt  was  necessary  to  force  the  Convention  in  1792  to 
sanction  what  the  rebellious  peasants  had  accomplished  in 
the  eastern  part  of  France  That  is  to  say,  the  Convention 
ordered  the  restitution  of  communal  lands  to  the  peasants. 
This  only  took  place  there,  when  the  land  had  already  been 
retaken  by  revolutionary  means.  It  is  the  fate  of  all  revo- 
lutionary laws  to  be  put  into  action  when  they  are  already 
an  accomplished  fact. 

Nevertheless  the  Convention  tainted  this  law  with  bour- 
geois gall.  It  decreed  that  lands  retaken  from  nobles  should 
be  divided  into  equal  parts  among  "  active  citizens  "  only, 
—  that  is  to  say,  among  the  village  bourgeois.  By  one  stroke 
of  the  pen  it  thus  dispossessed  "passive  citizens," — that  is 
to  say,  the  mass  of  impoverished  peasants,  who  had  most  need 
of  these  communal  lands.  Upon  which,  fortunately,  the 
peasants  again  revolted,  and  in  1793  the  Convention  passed 
a  new  law  decreeing  the  division  of  communal  lands  among 
all  inliabitants.  This  was  never  put  into  practice,  and  only 
served  as  an  excuse  for  new  thefts  of  communal  lands. 

Would  not  such  measures  suffice  to  bring  about  what  is 
called  the  "natural  death"  of  communes.''  Yet  communes 
still  existed.  On  August  24,  1704',  the  reaction,  being  in 
power,  struck  the  final  blow.  The  State  confiscated  all 
communal  lands,  and  made  of  them  a  guarantee  fund  for  the 
public  debt,  putting  them  up  at  auction  and  selling  them  to 
its  creatures  the  "  Thermidorians." 

This  law  was  happily  repealed  after  being  in  force  three 
years.  But,  at  the  same  time,  communes  were  abolished,  and 
replaced  by  cantonal  councils  in  order  that  the  State  might 
the  more  easily  fill  them  with  its  creatures.  This  lasted  till 
1801,  when  village  communes  were  revived.  But  then  the 
government  took  it  upon  itself  to  appoint  mayors  and  syndics 
in  each  of  the  36,000  communes !  And  this  absurdity  lasted 
till  the  revolution  of  July,  1830,  after  which  the  law  of  1789 
was    again   put    into    force.     And   in   the   interval    communal 


36  KROPOTKIN 

lands  were  again  wholly  confiscated  by  the  State  in  1813, 
and  plundered  anew  during  three  years.  What  remained 
of  them  was  only  returned  to  the  communes  at  the  end  of  that 
period,  in  1816. 

This  was  by  no  means  the  end.  Every  new  regime  saw 
in  communal  lands  a  source  of  reward  for  its  supporters. 
Therefore  at  three  different  intervals  since  1830,  the  first 
time  in  1837  and  the  last  under  Napoleon  III,  laws  were 
promulgated  to  force  peasants  to  divide  what  they  possessed 
of  forests  and  common  pasture-lands ;  and  three  times  the  gov- 
ernment was  compelled  to  abrogate  this  law  on  account  of 
the  peasants'  resistance.  All  the  same.  Napoleon  the  Third 
was  able  to  profit  by  it  and  bag  several  large  estates  for  his 
favorites. 

These  are  facts;  and  this  is  what,  in  scientific  language,  is 
called  the  "  natural  death  "  of  the  communal  landed  prop- 
erty under  the  influence  of  economic  laws !  As  well  call  the 
massacre  of  a  hundred  thousand  soldiers  on  a  battlefield 
"  natural  death." 

What  happened  in  France  happened  also  in  Belgium,  Eng- 
land, Germany,  Austria,—  in  fact  everywhere  in  Europe, 
Slav  countries  excepted. 

Strange  that  the  periods  of  plundering  the  communes 
should  correspond  in  all  Western  Europe !  The  methods  alone 
vary.  Thus  in  England  those  in  power  did  not  dare  to  en- 
act sweeping  measures;  they  preferred  passing  several  thou- 
sands of  separate  "  enclosure  acts  "  by  which,  in  each  special 
case.  Parliament  sanctioned  the  confiscation  of  land  —  it  does 
so  still  —  and  gave  to  the  squire  tlie  right  of  keeping  com- 
mon lands  he  had  fenced  in.  And  notwithstanding  that  Na- 
ture lias  ever  since  respected  the  narrow  furrows  by  which 
communal  fields  were  temporarily  divided  among  families  in 
the  villages  of  England,  and  that  we  have  clear  descriptions 
of  this  form  of  landed  property  at  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury in  the  books  of  a  certain  Marshall,  scientific  men  (such 
as  Seebohm,  worthy  emulator  of  Fustel  de  Coulanges)  are 
not  wanting  to  maintain  and  teach  that  communes  have  never 
existed  in  England  save  in  the  form  of  serfdom ! 


KROPOTKIN  37 

We  find  the  same  thing  going  on  in  Belgium,  Germany, 
Italy,  and  Spain.  And  in  one  way  or  another  personal  ap- 
propriation of  lands  formerly  communal  was  almost  brought 
to  completion  towards  the  middle  of  this  century.  Peas- 
ants have  only  kejjt  scraps  of  their  common  lands.  This  is 
the  way  in  which  the  mutual  assurance  of  lord,  priest,  soldier, 
and  judge  —  the  State  —  has  beliaved  toward  peasants  in 
order  to  despoil  them  of  their  last  guarantee  against  misery 
and  economic  servitude. 

But  while  organising  and  sanctioning  this  plunder,  could 
the  State  respect  the  institution  of  the  commune  as  an  organ 
of  local  life.^     Evidently  not. 

To  allow  citizens  to  constitute  a  federation  among  them- 
selves in  order  to  appropriate  some  functions  of  the  State 
would  have  been  a  contradiction  of  principle.  The  State 
demands  personal  and  direct  submission  of  its  subjects  with- 
out intermediate  agents ;  it  requires  equality  in  servitude ;  it 
cannot  allow   "  the   State   within  the   State." 

Therefore  as  soon  as  the  State  began  to  constitute  itself  in 
the  sixteenth  century  it  set  to  work  to  destroy  all  bonds  of 
union  that  existed  among  citizens,  both  in  towns  and  villages. 
If  under  the  name  of  municipal  institutions  it  tolerated  any 
vestiges  of  autonomy  —  never  of  independence  —  it  was  only 
with  a  fiscal  aim  to  lighten  the  central  budget  as  far  as  pos- 
sible; or  else  to  allow  the  provincial  well-to-do  to  enrich 
themselves  at  the  people's  expense,  as  was  the  case  in  Eng- 
land, and  is  so  still  in  institutions  and  in  customs. 

This  is  easily  understood.  Customary  law  naturally  per- 
tains to  local  life,  and  Roman  law  to  centralisation  of  power. 
The  two  cannot  live  side  by  side,  and  the  one  must  kill  the 
other. 

That  is  why  under  French  rule  in  Algeria,  when  a  Kabyle 
djenimah  —  a  village  commune  —  wants  to  plead  for  its  lands, 
every  inhabitant  of  the  commune  must  bring  his  isolated  ac- 
tion before  the  judge,  who  will  hear  fifty  or  even  two  hundred 
isolated  actions  sooner  than  hear  the  collective  suit  of  the 
djemmah.  The  Jacobin  code  of  the  Convention  (known  un- 
der the  name  of  Code  Napoleon)  does  not  recognize  custom- 
ary law,  it  only  recognizes  Roman  or  rather  Byzantine  law. 


38  KROPOTKIN 

That  is  why  in  France  when  the  wind  blows  down  a  tree 
on  the  national  highway,  or  a  peasant  gives  a  stonebreaker 
two  or  three  francs  in  preference  to  the  unpleasant  task  of 
repairing  the  communal  road  himself,  it  is  necessary  for 
twelve  or  fifteen  employees  of  the  Home  Office  and  Treasury 
to  be  put  in  motion,  and  for  more  than  fifty  documents  to  be 
exchanged  between  these  austere  functionaries,  before  the  tree 
can  be  sold  or  the  peasant  receives  permission  to  deposit  two 
or  three  francs  into  the  communal  treasury.  Should  you  have 
any  doubts  about  this,  you  will  find  these  fifty  documents  re- 
capitulated and  duly  numbered  by  M.  Tricoche  in  the  Journal 
des  Economistes. 

This  under  the  Third  Republic,  be  it  understood;  for  I  do 
not  speak  of  the  barbarous  methods  of  the  ancient  regime, 
that  limited  itself  to  five  or  six  documents.  No  doubt  scien- 
tists will  tell  you  that  at  that  barbarous  jDcriod  State  con- 
trol was  only  fictitious. 

And  if  it  were  only  this !  After  all,  it  would  be  but  twenty 
thousand  functionaries  too  many,  and  a  thousand  million 
francs  more  added  to  the  budget.  A  detail  for  the  lovers 
of  "order"  and  levelling! 

But  there  is  worse  at  the  bottom  of  all  this.  The  prin- 
ciple kills  everything. 

The  peasants  of  a  village  have  a  thousand  interests  in 
common:  interests  of  economy,  neighborhood,  and  constant 
intercourse.  They  are  perforce  compelled  to  unite  for  a  thou- 
sand divers  things.  But  the  State  cannot  allow  them  to  unite. 
It  gives  them  school  and  priest,  police  and  judge;  that  must 
suffice  them,  and  should  other  interests  arise  they  must  ap- 
ply in  the  regular  way  to  Church  and  State. 

Thus  till  1883  it  was  severely  forbidden  to  the  villagers  of 
France  to  unite,  were  it  only  to  buy  chemical  manure  or  to 
irrigate  their  fields.  It  was  only  in  1883  that  the  Republic 
granted  this  right  to  peasants  wlien  it  voted  the  law  on  unions, 
hampered  by  many  a  ))recaution  and  obstacle. 

And  we  with  our  faculties  blunted  by  State  education  re- 
joice at  the  sudden  jirogress  accomi)lished  by  agricultural 
syndicates,   williout   blushing   at    the    fact   that   this    right   of 


KROPOTKIN  39 

union  of  which  peasants  were  deprived  for  centuries  belonged 
to  them  without  contention  in  the  Middle  Ages,^ — -belonged  to 
every  man,  free  or  serf.  Slaves  that  we  are,  we  believe  it 
to  be  a  "  conquest  of  democracy  " ! 


IX 

"If  you  have  any  common  interests  in  the  city  or  the  vil- 
lage, ask  the  Church  and  the  State  to  look  after  them.  But 
you  are  forbidden  to  combine  in  a  direct  way  to  settle  mat- 
ters for  yourself!"  Such  is  the  formula  reechoing  through- 
out Europe  since  the  sixteenth  century.  Already  in  an  edict 
of  Edward  III,  issued  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
we  read  that  "  all  unions,  combinations,  meetings,  organised 
societies,  statutes,  and  oaths  already  established  or  to  be  es- 
tablished by  carpenters  and  masons,  will  henceforth  be  null 
and  void."  But  when  the  defeat  of  the  towns  and  of  the 
popular  insurrection  of  which  we  have  spoken  was  completed, 
the  State  boldly  laid  hands  on  all  the  institutions  (guilds,  fra- 
ternities, etc.)  which  used  to  bind  artisans  and  peasants  to- 
gether, and  annihilated  them. 

This  is  plainly  seen  in  England,  where  a  mass  of  docu- 
ments exists  showing  every  step  of  that  annihilation.  Little 
by  little  the  State  laid  hands  on  all  guilds  and  fraternities. 
It  pressed  tliem  closely,  abolished  their  leagues,  their  festi- 
vals, their  aldermen,  and  replaced  these  by  its  own  function- 
aries and  tribunals;  and  at  the  beginning  of  tlie  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, under  Henry  VIII,  the  State  simply  confiscated  every- 
thing possessed  by  the  guilds  without  further  ado.  The  heir 
to  the  great  protestant  king  finished  his   father's  work.^ 

It  was  robbery  carried  on  in  open  daylight,  "  without  ex- 
cuse "  as  Tliorold  Rogers  has  so  well  put  it.  And  it  is  this 
robbery  which  the  so-called  scientific  economists  represent 
as  the  "  natural  death  "  of  the  guilds  under  the  influence  of 
economic  laws ! 

In  truth,  was  it  possible  for  the  State  to  tolerate  a  guild 
or  corporation   of   a   trade,   with   its   tribunal,   its   militia,   its 

1  See  Toulmin  Smith's  work  on  Guilds. 


40  KROPOTKIN 

treasury,  its  sworn  organisation?  For  the  statesmen  this 
was  "  a  State  within  the  State."  The  State  was  bound  to  de- 
stroy the  guild,  and  it  destroyed  it  everywhere:  in  England, 
in  France,  in  Germany,  in  Bohemia,  preserving  only  the 
semblance  of  the  guild  as  an  instrument  of  the  exchequer,  as 
a  part  of  the  vast  administrative  machine. 

And  should  we  be  astonished  that  guilds,  trade-unions, 
and  wardenships,  deprived  of  everything  that  was  formerly 
their  life  and  placed  under  royal  functionaries,  became  in 
the  eighteenth  century  nought  but  encumbrances  and  ob- 
stacles to  the  development  of  industry,  after  having  been 
the  very  life  of  progress  four  centuries  before?  The  State 
had  killed  them.  In  fact  it  did  not  content  itself  with  de- 
stroying the  autonomous  organisation  wliich  was  necessary 
for  the  very  life  of  the  guilds  and  impeded  the  encroachments 
of  the  State;  it  did  not  content  itself  with  confiscating  all 
riches  and  property  of  the  guilds:  it  appropriated  for  itself 
all  their  economical  functions  as  well. 

In  a  city  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  interests  conflicted  in 
a  trade,  or  when  two  guilds  disagreed,  there  was  no  other  ap- 
peal than  to  the  city.  They  were  forced  to  settle  matters, 
to  find  some  compromise,  as  all  guilds  were  mutually  allied 
in  the  city.  And  a  compromise  was  always  arrived  at, —  by 
calling  in  another  city  to  arbitrate,  if  necessary.  Hence- 
forth, however,  tlie  only  arbitrator  was  the  State.  All  lo- 
cal disputes,  sometimes  of  the  most  insignificant  kind,  in  the 
smallest  town  of  a  few  hundred  inhabitants,  had  to  be  piled 
up  in  the  shape  of  useless  documents  in  the  offices  of  king  and 
parliament.  We  see  the  Englisli  parliament  literally  inun- 
dated with  these  thousands  of  petty  local  squabbles.  It  then 
becomes  necessary  to  have  in  the  capital  thousands  of  func- 
tionaries (venal  for  the  greater  part)  to  classify,  read,  judge 
all  these  documents,  to  pass  judgment  on  every  detail:  to  regu- 
late the  way  to  forge  a  horseshoe,  bleach  linen,  salt  herrings, 
make  a  barrel,  and  so  on  ad  hifinitum, —  and  the  tide  still 
rose ! 

But  this  was  not  all.  Soon  the  State  laid  hands  on  ex- 
I)ortati()n.  It  saw  in  this  commerce  a  means  of  enrichment, 
and  seized  upon  it.     Formerly,  when  a  dispute  arose  between 


KROPOTKIN  41 

two  towns  about  the  value  of  exported  cloth,  the  purity  of 
wool,  or  the  capacity  of  barrels  of  herrings,  the  two  towns 
made  remonstrances  to  each  other.  If  the  dispute  lasted  long, 
they  addressed  themselves  to  a  third  town  to  step  in  as  ar- 
bitrator (this  liappened  constantly)  ;  or  else  a  congress  of 
guilds  of  weavers  and  coopers  was  convened  to  regulate  inter- 
nationally the  quality  and  value  of  cloth  or  the  capacity  of 
barrels. 

Now,  however,  the  State  had  stepped  in  and  taken  upon 
itself  to  regulate  all  these  contentions  from  the  centre,  in 
Paris  or  in  London.  Through  its  functionaries  it  regulated 
the  capacity  of  barrels,  specified  the  quality  of  cloth,  or- 
dered tlie  number  of  threads  and  their  thickness  in  the  warp 
and  the  woof,  and  interfered  in  the  smallest  details  of  each 
industry. 

You  know  the  result.  Industry  under  this  control  was 
dying  out  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

What  had  in  fact  become  of  Benvenuto  Cellini's  art  under 
State  tutelage.''  Vanished.  And  the  architecture  of  those 
guilds  of  masons  and  carpenters  whose  works  of  art  we  still 
admire.''  Only  look  at  the  hideous  monuments  of  the  State 
period,  and  at  one  glance  you  will  know  that  architecture  was 
dead,  so  dead  that  it  has  never  since  been  able  to  recover 
from  the  blow  dealt  it  by  the  State. 

What  became  of  the  fabrics  of  Bruges,  of  the  cloth  from 
Holland.''  What  became  of  those  blacksmiths,  so  skilled  in 
manipulating  iron,  who,  in  each  European  borough,  knew 
how  to  turn  that  ungrateful  metal  into  the  most  exquisite 
decorations .''  What  became  of  those  turners,  those  clock- 
makers,  those  fitters,  who  had  made  Nuremberg  one  of  the 
glories  of  the  Middle  Ages  by  their  instruments  of  precision.'' 
Speak  of  them  to  James  Watt,  who  for  his  steam  engine 
looked  in  vain  during  thirty  years  for  a  man  who  could  make 
a  fairly  round  cylinder,  and  whose  macliine  remained  thirty 
years  a  rough  model  for  want  of  workmen  to  construct  it ! 

Such  was  the  result  of  State  interference  in  the  domain 
of  industry.  All  that  the  State  managed  to  do  was  to  tighten 
the  screw  on  the  worker,  depopulate  the  land,   sow  misery 


42  KROPOTKIN 

in  the  towns,  reduce  thousands  of  beings  to  the  state  of  starve- 
lings, and  impose  industrial  slavery. 

And  it  is  these  miserable  wrecks  of  ancient  guilds,  these 
organisms  mangled  and  oppressed  by  the  State,  that  "  sci- 
entific "  economists  have  the  ignorance  to  confound  with  the 
guilds  of  the  Middle  Ages !  What  the  great  Revolution  swept 
away  as  harmful  to  industry  was  not  the  guild,  or  even  the 
trade  union ;  it  was  a  piece  of  machinery  both  useless  and 
harmful. 


X 

History  has  not  been  an  uninterrupted  evolution.  At  dif- 
ferent intervals  evolution  has  been  broken  in  a  certain  re- 
gion, to  begin  again  elsewhere.  Egypt,  Asia,  the  banks  of 
the  Mediterranean,  Central  Europe  have  in  turn  been  the 
scene  of  liistorical  developments.  But,  in  every  case,  the  first 
phase  of  the  evolution  has  been  the  primitive  tribe,  passing 
on  into  a  village  commune,  then  into  the  free  city,  and  finally 
dying  out  when  it  reaches  tlie  phase  of  the  State. 

In  Egypt,  civilization  began  by  the  primitive  tribe.  It 
reached  the  village  community  phasis,  and  later  on  the  period 
of  free  cities;  still  later  that  of  the  State,  which,  after  a 
flourishing   period,   resulted   in   the   death    of   the   country. 

The  evolution  began  again  in  Assyria,  in  Persia,  in  Pales- 
tine. Again  it  traversed  the  same  patli :  the  tribe,  the  vil- 
lage community,  the  free  city,  the  all-powerful  State;  and 
finally  the  result  was  —  death  ! 

A  new  civilization  then  sprang  up  in  Greece.  Always  be- 
ginning by  the  tribe,  it  slowly  reached  the  village  commune, 
then  the  period  of  republican  cities.  In  these  cities,  civili- 
zation readied  its  higliest  sunimits.  But  the  East  brought 
to  them  its  poisoned  breath,  its  traditions  of  despotism.  Wars 
and  conquests  created  Alexander's  empire  of  Macedonia.  The 
State  enthroned  itself,  killed  all  civilization,  and  then  came 
—  death ! 

Rome  in  its  turn  restored  civilization.  Again  we  find  the 
primitive  tribe  at  its  origin,  then  the  village  commune,  then 


KROPOTKIN  43 

the  free  city.  At  that  stage  it  reached  the  apex  of  its  civili- 
zation. But  then  came  the  State,  the  Empire,  and  then  — 
death ! 

On  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Celtic,  Germanic^  Sla- 
vonian, and  Scandinavian  tribes  began  civilization  anew. 
Slowly  the  primitive  tribe  elaborated  its  institutions  and 
reached  the  village  commune.  It  remained  at  that  stage  till 
the  twelfth  century.  Then  rose  the  Republican  cities  which 
produced  the  glorious  expansion  of  the  human  mind,  attested 
by  the  monuments  of  architecture,  the  grand  development  of 
arts,  the  discoveries  that  laid  the  basis  of  natural  sciences. 
But  then  came  the  State. 

Will  it  again  produce  death?  Of  course  it  will,  unless  we 
reconstitute  Society  on  a  libertarian  and  anti-State  basis. 
Either  the  State  will  be  destroyed  and  a  new  life  will  begin 
in  thousands  of  centres,  on  the  principle  of  an  energetic  initia- 
tive of  the  individual,  of  groups,  and  of  free  agreement;  or 
else  the  State  must  crush  the  individual  and  local  life,  it  must 
become  the  master  of  all  the  domains  of  human  activity,  must 
bring  with  it  its  wars  and  internal  struggles  for  the  posses- 
sion of  power,  its  surface-revolutions  which  only  change  one 
tyrant  for  another,  and  inevitably  at  the  end  of  this  evolution 
—  death  ! 

Choose  yourselves  which  of  the  two  issues  you  prefer. 


HENRY  THOMAS  BUCKLE 

(1821-1862) 

INQUIRY  INTO  THE  INFLUENCE  EXERCISED 
BY  GOVERNMENT  1 

To  any  one  who  has  studied  history  in  its  original  sources, 
the  notion  that  the  civilization  of  Europe  is  chiefly  owing  to 
the  ability  which  has  been  displayed  by  the  different  gov- 
ernments, and  to  the  sagacity  with  which  the  evils  of  society 
have  been  palliated  by  legislative  remedies,  must  appear  so 
extravagant  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  refute  it  with  becoming 
gravity.  Indeed,  of  all  the  social  theories  which  have  ever 
been  broached,  there  is  none  so  utterly  untenable,  and  so  un- 
sound in  all  its  parts,  as  this.  In  the  first  place,  we  have  the 
obvious  consideration  that  the  rulers  of  a  country  have,  un- 
der ordinary  circumstances,  always  been  the  inhabitants  of 
that  country:  nurtured  by  its  literature,  bred  to  its  traditions, 
and  imbibing  its  prejudices.  Such  men  are,  at  best,  only  the 
creatures  of  the  age,  never  its  creators.  Their  measures  are 
the  result  of  social  progress,  not  the  cause  of  it.  This  may 
be  proved,  not  only  by  speculative  arguments,  but  also  by  a 
practical  consideration,  which  any  reader  of  history  can 
verify  for  himself.  No  great  political  improvement,  no  great 
reform,  either  legislative  or  executive,  has  ever  been  origi- 
nated in  any  country  by  its  rulers.  The  first  suggestcrs  of 
such  steps  have  invariably  been  bold  and  able  thinkers,  who 
discern  the  abuse,  denounce  it,  and  point  out  how  it  is  to  be 
remedied.  But  long  after  tliis  is  done,  even  the  most  en- 
lightened governments  continue  to  uphold  the  abuse  and  re- 
ject the  remedy.  At  length,  if  circumstances  are  favorable, 
the  pressure   from  without  becomes  so  strong  that  the  gov- 

1  From  the  first  volume,  puhlislu'd  in  1857,  of  this  author's  stand- 
ard "  History  of  Civilization  in   England." 

44 


BUCKLE  46 

ernment  is  obliged  to  give  way;  and,  the  reform  being  ac- 
complished, the  people  are  expected  to  admire  the  wisdom  of 
their  rulers,  by  whom  all  this  has  been  done.  That  this  is 
tlie  course  of  political  improvement  must  be  well  known  to 
whoever  has  studied  the  law-books  of  different  countries  in 
connection  with  the  previous  progress  of  their  knowledge. 
Full  and  decisive  evidence  of  this  will  be  brought  forward 
in  the  present  work;  but,  by  way  of  illustration,  I  may  refer 
to  the  abolition  of  the  corn-laws,  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  facts  in  the  history  of  England  during  this  cen- 
tury. The  propriety  and,  indeed,  the  necessity  of  their  aboli- 
tion is  now  admitted  by  every  one  of  tolerable  information; 
and  the  question  arises  as  to  how  it  was  brought  about. 
Those  Englishmen  who  are  little  versed  in  the  history  of  their 
country  will  say  that  the  real  cause  was  the  wisdom  of  Par- 
liament; while  others,  attempting  to  look  a  little  further,  will 
ascribe  it  to  the  activity  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  and 
the  consequent  pressure  put  upon  Government.  But  whoever 
will  minutely  trace  the  different  stages  through  which  this 
great  question  successively  passed  will  find  that  the  Govern- 
ment, the  Legislature,  and  the  League  were  the  unwitting 
instruments  of  a  power  far  greater  than  all  other  powers  put 
together.  They  were  simply  the  exponents  of  that  march  of 
public  opinion  which  on  this  subject  had  begun  nearly  a  cen- 
tury before  their  time.  The  steps  of  this  vast  movement  I 
shall  examine  on  another  occasion;  at  present  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
absurdity  of  protective  restrictions  on  trade  was  so  fully 
demonstrated  by  the  political  economists  as  to  be  admitted  by 
every  man  who  understood  their  arguments  and  had  mastered 
the  evidence  connected  with  them.  From  this  moment,  the 
repeal  of  the  corn-laws  became  a  matter,  not  of  party,  nor  of 
expediency,  but  merely  of  knowledge.  Those  who  knew  the 
facts  opposed  the  laws;  those  who  were  ignorant  of  the  facts 
favored  the  laws.  It  was,  therefore,  clear  that  whenever  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge  reached  a  certain  point,  the  laws  must 
fall.  The  merit  of  the  League  was  to  aid  in  this  diffusion;  the 
merit  of  the  Parliament  was  to  yield  to  it.  It  is,  however, 
certain  that  the  members  both  of  League  and  Legislature  could 


46  BUCKLE 

at  best  only  slightly  hasten  what  the  progress  of  knowledge 
rendered  inevitable.  If  they  had  lived  a  century  earlier  they 
would  have  been  altogether  powerless,  because  the  age  would 
not  have  been  ripe  for  their  labors.  They  were  the  crea- 
tures of  a  movement  which  began  long  before  any  of  them 
were  born ;  and  the  utmost  they  could  do  was  to  put  into 
operation  what  others  had  taught,  and  repeat,  in  louder  tones, 
the  lessons  they  had  learned  from  their  masters.  For  it  was 
not  pretended,  they  did  not  even  pretend  themselves,  that 
there  was  anything  new  in  the  doctrines  which  they  preached 
from  the  hustings,  and  disseminated  in  every  part  of  the  king- 
dom. The  discoveries  had  long  since  been  made,  and  were 
gradually  doing  their  work ;  encroaching  upon  old  errors,  and 
making  proselytes  in  all  directions.  The  reformers  of  our 
time  swam  with  the  stream :  they  aided  what  it  would  have 
been  impossible  long  to  resist.  Nor  is  this  to  be  deemed  a 
slight  or  grudging  praise  of  the  services  they  undoubtedly 
rendered.  The  opposition  they  had  to  encounter  was  still 
immense;  and  it  should  always  be  remembered,  as  a  proof 
of  the  backwardness  of  political  knowledge  and  of  the  in- 
competence of  political  legislators,  that  although  the  principles 
of  free  trade  had  been  established  for  nearly  a  century  by  a 
chain  of  arguments  as  solid  as  those  on  which  the  truths  of 
mathematics  are  based,  they  were  to  the  last  moment  strenu- 
ously resisted;  and  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that 
Parliament  was  induced  to  grant  what  the  people  were  de- 
termined to  have,  and  the  necessity  of  which  had  been  proved 
by  the  ablest  men  during  three  successive  generations. 

I  have  selected  this  instance  as  an  illustration,  because  the 
facts  connected  with  it  are  undisputed,  and,  indeed,  are  fresh 
in  the  memory  of  us  all.  For  it  was  not  concealed  at  the 
time,  and  posterity  ought  to  know,  that  tliis  great  measure, 
which,  with  the  exception  of  the  Reform  Bill,  is  by  far  the 
most  important  ever  passed  by  a  Britisli  parliament,  was,  like 
the  Reform  Bill,  extorted  from  tlie  legislature  by  a  pressure 
from  without;  that  it  was  conceded,  not  cheerfully,  but  with 
fear;  and  tliat  it  was  carried  by  statesmen  who  had  spent 
their  lives  in  opposing  what  they  now  suddenly  advocated. 
Such  was  the  history  of  these  events ;  and  such  likewise  has 


BUCKLE  47 

been  the  history  of  all  those  improvements  which  are  impor- 
tant enough  to  rank  as  epochs  in  the  history  of  modern  legisla- 
tion. 

Besides  this,  there  is  another  circumstance  worthy  the  at- 
tention of  those  writers  who  ascribe  a  large  part  of  European 
civilization  to  measures  originated  by  European  governments. 
This  is,  that  every  great  reform  which  has  been  eifected  has 
consisted,  not  in  doing  something  new^  but  in  undoing  some- 
thing old.  The  most  valuable  additions  made  to  legislation 
have  been  enactments  destructive  of  preceding  legislation; 
and  the  best  laws  which  have  been  passed  have  been  those 
by  which  some  former  laws  were  repealed.  In  the  case  just 
mentioned,  of  the  corn-laws,  all  that  was  done  was  to  re- 
peal the  old  laws,  and  leave  trade  to  its  natural  freedom. 
When  this  great  reform  was  accomplished,  the  only  result 
was  to  place  things  on  the  same  footing  as  if  legislators  had 
never  interfered  at  all.  Precisely  the  same  remark  is  ap- 
plicable to  another  leading  improvement  in  modern  legisla- 
tion, namely,  the  decrease  of  religious  persecution.  This  is 
unquestionably  an  immense  boon;  though,  unfortunately,  it 
is  still  imperfect,  even  in  the  most  civilized  countries.  But 
it  is  evident  that  the  concession  merely  consists  in  this :  that 
legislators  have  retraced  their  own  steps,  and  undone  their 
own  work.  If  we  examine  the  policy  of  the  most  humane 
and  enlightened  governments,  we  shall  find  this  to  be  the 
course  they  have  pursued.  The  whole  scope  and  tendency 
of  modern  legislation  is  to  restore  things  to  that  natural  chan- 
nel from  which  the  ignorance  of  preceding  legislation  has 
driven  them.  This  is  one  of  the  great  works  of  the  present 
age;  and  if  legislators  do  it  well,  they  will  deserve  the  grati- 
tude of  mankind.  But  though  we  may  thus  be  grateful  to 
individual  lawgivers,  we  owe  no  thanks  to  lawgivers  con- 
sidered as  a  class.  For  since  the  most  valuable  improve- 
ments in  legislation  are  those  which  subvert  preceding  legis- 
lation, it  is  clear  that  the  balance  of  good  cannot  be  on  their 
side.  It  is  clear  that  the  progress  of  civilization  cannot  be 
due  to  those  who,  on  the  most  important  subjects,  have  done 
so  much  harm  that  their  successors  are  considered  benefactors 
simply  because  they  reverse  their  policy,  and  tlms  restore 
affairs   to   the   state   in   which   thev   would   have   remained   if 


48  BUCKLE 

politicians  had  allowed  them  to  run  on  in  the  course  which 
the  w^ants  of  society  required. 

Indeed,  the  extent  to  which  the  governing  classes  have  in- 
terfered, and  the  mischiefs  which  that  interference  has  pro- 
duced, are  so  remarkable  as  to  make  thoughtful  men  wonder 
how  civilization  could  advance  in  the  face  of  such  repeated 
obstacles.  In  some  of  the  European  countries  the  obstacles 
have,  in  fact,  proved  insuperable,  and  the  national  progress 
is  thereby  stopped.  Even  in  England,  where,  from  causes 
which  I  shall  presently  relate,  the  higher  ranks  have  for 
some  centuries  been  less  powerful  than  elsewhere,  there  has 
been  inflicted  an  amount  of  evil  which,  though  much  smaller 
than  that  incurred  in  other  countries,  is  sufficiently  serious 
to  form  a  melancholy  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind.  To  sum  up  these  evils  would  be  to  write  a  history  of 
English  legislation;  for  it  may  be  broadly  stated  that,  with 
the  exception  of  certain  necessary  enactments  respecting  the 
preservation  of  order  and  the  punishment  of  crime,  nearly 
every  thing  which  has  been  done  has  been  done  amiss.  Thus, 
to  take  only  such  conspicuous  facts  as  do  not  admit  of  con- 
troversy, it  is  certain  that  all  the  most  important  interests 
have  been  grievously  damaged  by  the  attempts  of  legislators 
to  aid  them.  Among  the  accessories  of  modern  civilization 
there  is  none  of  greater  moment  than  trade,  the  spread  of 
which  has  probably  done  more  than  any  otlier  single  agent 
to  increase  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  man.  But  every 
European  government  wliich  lias  legislated  much  respecting 
trade  has  acted  as  if  its  main  object  were  to  suppress  the 
trade  and  ruin  the  traders.  Instead  of  leaving  the  national 
industry  to  take  its  own  course,  it  has  been  troubled  by  an 
interminable  series  of  regulations,  all  intended  for  its  good, 
and  all  inflicting  serious  harm.  To  such  a  licight  has  this 
been  carried  that  the  commercial  reforms  wliicli  have  dis- 
tinguished England  during  the  last  twenty  years  have  solely 
consisted  in  undoing  this  mischievous  and  intrusive  legisla- 
tion. The  laws  formerly  enacted  on  this  subject,  and  too 
many  of  which  are  still  in  force,  are  marvellous  to  contem- 
plate.     It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  history   of  the 


BUCKLE  4d 

commercial  legislation  of  Europe  presents  every  possible  con- 
trivance for  hampering  the  energies  of  commerce.  Indeed, 
a  very  high  authority,  who  has  maturely  studied  this  sub- 
ject, has  recently  declared  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  smug^ 
gling  trade  could  not  have  been  conducted,  but  must 
have  perished  in  consequence  of  this  incessant  interference. 
However  paradoxical  this  assertion  may  appear,  it  will  be 
denied  by  no  one  who  knows  how  feeble  trade  once  was, 
and  how  strong  the  obstacles  were  which  opposed  it.  In 
every  quarter,  and  at  every  moment,  the  hand  of  govern- 
ment was  felt.  Duties  on  importation,  and  duties  on  expor- 
tation ;  bounties  to  raise  up  a  losing  trade,  and  taxes  to  pull 
down  a  remunerative  one ;  this  branch  of  industry  forbidden, 
and  that  branch  of  industry  encouraged;  one  article  of  com- 
merce must  not  be  grown,  because  it  was  grown  in  the  colonies, 
another  article  might  be  grown  and  bought,  but  not  sold 
again,  while  a  third  article  might  be  bought  and  sold,  but  not 
leave  the  country.  Then,  too,  we  find  laws  to  regulate  wages ; 
laws  to  regulate  prices;  laws  to  regulate  profits;  laws  to 
regulate  the  interest  on  money ;  custom-house  arrangements 
of  the  most  vexatious  kind,  aided  by  a  complicated  scheme 
which  was  well  called  the  sliding  scale, —  a  scheme  of  such 
perverse  ingenuity  that  all  duties  constantly  varied  on  the 
same  article,  and  no  man  could  calculate  beforehand  what 
he  would  liave  to  pay.  To  this  uncertainty,  itself  the  bane 
of  all  commerce,  there  was  added  a  severity  of  exaction,  felt 
by  every  class  of  consumers  and  producers.  The  tolls  were 
so  onerous  as  to  double  and  often  quadruple  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction. A  system  was  organized,  and  strictly  enforced,  of 
interference  with  markets,  interference  with  manufactories, 
interference  with  machinery,  interference  even  with  shops. 
The  towns  were  guarded  by  excisemen,  and  the  ports  swarmed 
with  tide-waiters,  whose  sole  business  was  to  inspect  nearly 
every  process  of  domestic  industry,  peer  into  every  package, 
and  tax  every  article;  while,  that  absurdity  miglit  be  car- 
ried to  its  extreme  height,  a  large  part  of  all  this  was  by  way 
of  protection :  that  is  to  say,  the  money  was  avowedly  raised, 
and  the  inconvenience  suffered,  not  for  the  use  of  the  gov- 


50  BUCKLE 

eminent,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  people;  in  other  words, 
the  industrious  classes  were  robbed  in  order  that  industry 
might  thrive. 

Such  are  some  of  the  benefits  which  European  trade  owes 
to  the  paternal  care  of  Eurojaean  legislators.  But  worse 
still  remains  behind.  For  the  economical  evils,  great  as  they 
were,  have  been  far  surpassed  by  the  moral  evils  which  this 
system  produced.  The  first  inevitable  consequence  was  that, 
in  every  part  of  Europe,  there  arose  numerous  and  powerful 
gangs  of  armed  smugglers,  who  lived  by  disobeying  the  laws 
which  their  ignorant  rulers  had  imposed.  These  men,  des- 
perate from  the  fear  of  punishment,  and  accustomed  to  the 
commission  of  every  crime,  contaminated  the  surrounding 
population;  introduced  into  peaceful  villages  vices  formerly 
unknown ;  caused  the  ruin  of  entire  families ;  spread,  wherever 
they  came,  drunkenness,  tlieft,  and  dissoluteness ;  and  famil- 
iarized their  associates  with  those  coarse  and  swinish  de- 
baucheries which  were  the  natural  habits  of  so  vagrant  and 
lawless  a  life.  The  innumerable  crimes  arising  from  this 
are  directly  chargeable  upon  the  European  governments  by 
whom  they  were  provoked.  The  offences  were  caused  by  the 
laws ;  and  now  that  the  laws  are  repealed,  the  off'ences  have 
disappeared.  But  it  will  hardly  be  pretended  that  the  in- 
terests of  civilization  have  been  advanced  by  such  a  policy 
as  this.  It  will  hardly  be  pretended  that  we  owe  much  to  a 
system  which,  having  called  into  existence  a  new  class  of 
criminals,  at  length  retraces  its  steps ;  and,  though  it  thus 
puts  an  end  to  the  crime,  only  destroys  what  its  own  act  had 
created. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  tliese  remarks  do  not  affect 
the  real  services  rendered  to  society  by  every  tolerably  or- 
ganized government.  In  all  countries,  a  power  of  punish- 
ing crime  and  of  framing  laws  must  reside  somewhere ;  other- 
wise the  nation  is  in  a  state  of  anarchy.  But  the  accusation 
which  the  historian  is  bound  to  bring  against  every  govern- 
ment which  has  liitherto  existed  is  tliat  it  has  overstepped 
its  proper  functions,  and  at  each  stcj)  has  done  incalculable 
liarm.  Tlie  love  of  exercising  power  lias  been  found  to  be 
so  universal  that  no  class  of  men  who  have  possessed  author- 


BUCKLE  51 

ity  have  been  able  to  avoid  abusing  it.  To  maintain  order, 
to  prevent  the  strong  from  oppressing  the  weak,  and  to  adopt 
certain  precautions  respecting  the  public  health,  are  the  only 
services  which  any  government  can  render  to  the  interests 
of  civilization.  That  these  are  services  of  immense  value, 
no  one  will  deny;  but  it  cannot  be  said  that  by  them  civiliza- 
tion is  advanced,  or  tlie  progress  of  INIan  accelerated.  All 
that  is  done  is  to  afford  the  opportunity  of  progress;  the 
progress  itself  must  depend  upon  other  matters.  And  that 
this  is  the  sound  view  of  legislation  is,  moreover,  evident 
from  the  fact  that  as  knowledge  is  becoming  more  diifused, 
and  as  an  increasing  experience  is  enabling  each  successive 
generation  better  to  understand  the  complicated  relations  of 
life,  just  in  the  same  proportion  are  men  insisting  upon  the 
repeal  of  those  protective  laws  the  enactment  of  which  was 
deemed  by  politicians  to  be  the  greatest  triumph  of  political 
foresight. 

Seeing,  therefore,  that  the  efforts  of  government  in  favor 
of  civilization  are,  when  most  successful,  altogether  negative; 
and  seeing,  too,  that  when  those  efforts  are  more  than  negative 
they  become  injurious, —  it  clearly  follows  that  all  specula- 
tions must  be  erroneous  which  ascribe  the  progress  of  Europe 
to  the  wisdom,  of  its  rulers.  This  is  an  inference  which  rests 
not  only  on  the  arguments  already  adduced,  but  on  facts 
which  might  be  multiplied  from  every  page  of  history.  For  no 
government  having  recognized  its  proper  limits,  the  result 
is  that  every  government  has  inflicted  on  its  subjects  great 
injuries;  and  has  done  this  nearly  always  with  the  best  in- 
tentions. The  effects  of  its  protective  policy  in  injuring  trade, 
and,  what  is  far  worse,  in  increasing  crime,  have  just  been 
noticed;  and  to  these  instances  innumerable  others  might  be 
added.  Thus,  during  many  centuries,  every  government 
thought  it  was  its  bounden  duty  to  encourage  religious  truth 
and  discourage  religious  error.  The  mischief  this  has  pro- 
duced is  incalculable.  Putting  aside  all  other  considerations, 
it  is  enough  to  mention  its  two  leading  consequences ;  which 
are,  the  increase  of  hypocrisy,  and  the  increase  of  perjury. 
The  increase  of  hypocrisy  is  the  inevitable  result  of  connect- 
ing any  description  of  penalty  with  the  profession  of  par- 


52  BUCKLE 

ticular  opinions.  Whatever  may  be  the  case  with  individuals, 
it  is  certain  that  the  majority  of  men  hnd  an  extreme  difficulty 
in  long  resisting  constant  temptation.  And  when  tlie  tempta- 
tion comes  to  them  in  the  shape  of  honor  and  emolument, 
they  are  too  often  ready  to  profess  the  dominant  opinions, 
and  abandon,  not  indeed  their  belief,  but  the  external  marks 
by  which  that  belief  is  made  public.  Every  man  who  takes 
this  step  is  a  hypocrite;  and  every  government  which  en- 
courages this  step  to  be  taken  is  an  abettor  of  hypocrisy  and 
a  creator  of  hypocrites.  Well,  therefore,  may  we  say  that 
when  a  government  holds  out  as  a  bait  that  those  who  pro- 
fess certain  opinions  shall  enjoy  certain  privileges,  it  plays 
the  part  of  the  tempter  of  old,  and,  like  the  Evil  One,  basely 
offers  the  good  things  of  this  world  to  him  who  will  change 
his  worship  and  deny  his  faith.  At  the  same  time,  and  as  a 
part  of  this  system,  the  increase  of  perjury  has  accompanied 
the  increase  of  hypocrisy.  For  legislators,  plainly  seeing 
that  proselytes  thus  obtained  could  not  be  relied  upon,  have 
met  the  danger  by  the  most  extraordinary  precautions;  and 
compelling  men  to  confirm  their  belief  by  repeated  oaths, 
liave  thus  sought  to  protect  the  old  creed  against  the  new 
converts.  It  is  this  suspicion  as  to  the  motives  of  others 
which  has  given  rise  to  oaths  of  every  kind  and  in  every  di- 
rection. In  England,  even  the  boy  at  college  is  forced  to 
swear  about  matters  which  he  cannot  understand,  and  which 
far  riper  minds  are  unable  to  master.  If  he  afterwards  goes 
into  Parliament,  he  must  again  swear  about  his  religion ;  and 
at  nearly  every  stage  of  political  life  he  must  take  fresh 
oaths,  the  solemnity  of  which  is  often  strangely  contrasted 
with  the  trivial  functions  to  wliich  they  are  the  prelude.  A 
solemn  adjuration  of  the  Deity  being  thus  made  at  every 
turn,  it  has  happened,  as  might  have  been  expected,  that 
oaths,  enjoined  as  a  matter  of  course,  have  at  lengtli  degener- 
ated into  a  matter  of  form.  What  is  lightly  taken  is  easily 
broken.  And  the  best  observers  of  Englisli  society  —  ob- 
servers, too,  whose  diaracters  are  very  different,  and  who 
hold  the  most  opposite  opinions  —  are  all  agreed  on  this, 
that  the  perjury  habitually  practiced  in  England,  and  of 
which    government   is    the    immediate    creator,    is    so    general 


BUCKLE  63 

that  it  has  become  a  source  of  national  corruption,  has  di- 
minished the  value  of  human  testimony,  and  shaken  the  con- 
fidence which  men  naturally  place  in  the  word  of  their  fel- 
low-creatures. 

The  open  vices  and,  what  is  much  more  dangerous,  the 
hidden  corruption  thus  generated  in  the  midst  of  society  by 
the  ignorant  interference  of  Christian  rulers  is  indeed  a 
painful  subject;  but  it  is  one  which  I  could  not  omit  in  an 
analysis  of  the  causes  of  civilization.  It  would  be  easy  to 
push  the  inquiry  still  further,  and  to  show  how  legislators, 
in  every  attempt  they  have  made  to  protect  some  particular  in- 
terests and  uphold  some  particular  principles,  have  not  only 
failed,  but  have  brought  about  results  diametrically  opposite 
to  those  which  they  proposed.  We  have  seen  that  their  laws 
in  favor  of  industry  have  injured  industry;  that  their  laws 
in  favor  of  religion  have  increased  hypocrisy;  and  that  their 
laws  to  secure  truth  have  encouraged  perjury.  Exactly  in 
the  same  way,  nearly  every  country  has  taken  steps  to  pre- 
vent usury  and  keep  down  the  interest  of  money;  and  the 
invariable  effect  has  been  to  increase  usury  and  raise  the  in- 
terest of  money.  For  since  no  prohibition,  however  stringent, 
can  destroy  the  natural  relation  between  demand  and  supply, 
it  has  followed  that  when  some  men  want  to  borrow,  and 
other  men  want  to  lend,  both  parties  are  sure  to  find  means 
of  evading  a  law  which  interferes  with  their  mutual  rights. 
If  the  two  parties  were  left  to  adjust  their  own  bargain  un- 
disturbed the  usury  would  depend  on  the  circumstances  of  the 
loan,  such  as  the  amount  of  security  and  the  chance  of  re- 
payment. But  this  natural  arrangement  has  been  compli- 
cated by  the  interference  of  government.  A  certain  risk 
being  always  incurred  by  those  who  disobey  the  law,  the 
usurer  very  properly  refuses  to  lend  his  money  unless  he  is 
also  compensated  for  the  danger  he  is  in  from  the  penalty 
hanging  over  him.  This  compensation  can  only  be  made  by 
the  borrower,  who  is  thus  obliged  to  pay  what  in  reality 
is  a  double  interest:  one  interest  for  the  natural  risk  on  the 
loan,  and  another  interest  for  the  extra  risk  from  the  law. 
Such,  then,  is  the  position  in  which  every  European  legisla- 
ture has  placed  itself.      By  enactments  against  usury  it  has 


54  BUCKLE 

increased  what  it  wished  to  destroy:  it  has  passed  laws  which 
the  imperative  necessities  of  men  compel  them  to  violate: 
while,  to  wind  up  the  whole,  the  penalty  for  such  violation 
falls  on  the  borrowers, —  that  is,  on  the  very  class  in  whose 
favor  the  legislators  interfered. 

In  the  same  meddling  spirit,  and  with  the  same  mistaken 
notions  of  protection,  the  great  Christian  governments  have 
done  other  things  still  more  injurious.  They  have  made 
strenuous  and  repeated  efforts  to  destroy  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  and  prevent  men  from  expressing  their  sentiments 
on  the  most  important  questions  in  politics  and  religion.  In 
nearly  every  country,  they,  with  the  aid  of  the  church,  have  or- 
ganized a  vast  system  of  literary  police,  the  sole  object  of 
which  is  to  abrogate  the  undoubted  right  of  every  citizen  to 
lay  his  opinions  before  his  fellow-citizens.  In  the  very  few 
countries  where  they  have  stopped  short  of  these  extreme 
steps,  they  have  had  recourse  to  others  less  violent  but  equally 
unwarrantable.  For  even  where  they  have  not  openl}^  for- 
bidden the  free  dissemination  of  knowledge,  they  have  done 
all  that  they  could  to  check  it.  On  all  the  implements  of 
knowledge,  and  on  all  the  means  by  which  it  is  diffused, 
such  as  paper,  books,  political  journals,  and  the  like,  they 
have  imposed  duties  so  heavy  that  they  could  hardly  have 
done  worse  if  they  had  been  the  sworn  advocates  of  popular 
ignorance.  Indeed,  looking  at  what  they  have  actually  ac- 
complished, it  may  be  emphatically  said  that  they  have  taxed 
the  human  mind.  They  have  made  the  very  thoughts  of  men 
pay  toll.  Whoever  wishes  to  communicate  his  ideas  to  others, 
and  thus  do  what  he  can  to  increase  the  stock  of  our  acquire- 
ments, must  first  pour  his  contributions  into  the  imperial  ex- 
chequer. That  is  the  penalty  inflicted  on  liim  for  instruct- 
ing his  fellow-creatures.  That  is  the  blackmail  which  gov- 
ernment extorts  from  literature  and  on  receipt  of  which  it 
accords  its  favor  and  agrees  to  abstain  from  further  demands. 
And  what  causes  all  this  to  be  the  more  insufferable  is  the 
use  which  is  made  of  these  and  similar  exactions,  wrung  from 
every  kind  of  industry,  both  bodily  and  mental.  It  is  truly 
a  frightful  consideration  that  knowledge  is  to  be  hindered, 
and   tliat  the   proceeds   of   honest  labor,   of   patient  thought. 


BUCKLE  55 

and  sometimes  or  profound  genius  are  to  be  diminished,  in 
order  that  a  large  part  of  their  scanty  earnings  may  go  to 
swell  the  pomp  of  an  idle  and  ignorant  court,  minister  to  the 
caprice  of  a  few  powerful  individuals,  and  too  often  supply 
them  with  the  means  of  turning  against  the  people  resources 
which  the  people  called  into  existence. 

These,  and  the  foregoing  statements  respecting  the  ef- 
fects produced  on  European  society  by  political  legislation, 
are  not  doubtful  or  hypothetical  inferences,  but  are  such  as 
every  reader  of  history  may  verify  for  himself.  Indeed,  some 
of  them  are  still  acting  in  England;  and,  in  one  country  or 
another,  the  whole  of  them  may  be  seen  in  full  force.  When 
put  together  they  compose  an  aggregate  so  formidable  that  we 
may  well  wonder  how,  in  the  face  of  them,  civilization  has 
been  able  to  advance.  That,  under  such  circumstances,  it  has 
advanced  is  a  decisive  proof  of  the  extraordinary  energy  of 
Man;  and  justifies  a  confident  belief  that  as  the  pressure  of 
legislation  is  diminished,  and  the  human  mind  less  hampered, 
the  progress  will  contine  with  accelerated  speed.  But  it  is 
absurd,  it  would  be  a  mockery  of  all  sound  reasoning,  to 
ascribe  to  legislation  any  share  in  the  progress,  or  to  expect 
any  benefit  from  future  legislators  except  that  sort  of  benefit 
which  consists  in  undoing  the  work  of  their  predecessors. 
This  is  what  the  present  generation  claims  at  their  hands ; 
and  it  should  be  remembered  that  what  one  generation  so- 
licits as  a  boon  the  next  generation  demands  as  a  right.  And, 
when  the  riglit  is  pertinaciously  refused,  one  of  two  things 
has  always  happened:  either  the  nation  has  retrograded  or 
else  the  people  have  risen.  Should  the  government  remain 
firm,  this  is  the  cruel  dilemma  in  which  men  are  placed:  if 
they  submit,  they  injure  their  country;  if  they  rebel,  they 
may  injure  it  still  more.  In  the  ancient  monarchies  of  the 
East,  their  usual  plan  was  to  yield;  in  the  monarchies  of  Eu- 
rope, it  has  been  to  resist.  Hence  those  insurrections  and 
rebellions  which  occupy  so  large  a  space  in  modern  history, 
and  which  are  but  repetitions  of  the  old  story,  the  undying 
struggle  between  oppressors  and  oppressed.  It  would,  how- 
ever, be  unjust  to  deny  that  in  one  country  the  fatal  crisis 
has   now   for   several   generations   been   successfully   averted. 


56  BUCKLE 

In  one  European  country,  and  in  one  alone,  the  people  have 
been  so  strong,  and  the  government  so  weak,  that  the  history 
of  legislation,  taken  as  a  whole,  is,  notwithstanding  a  few 
aberrations,  the  history  of  slow  but  constant  concession:  re- 
forms which  would  have  been  refused  to  argument  have  been 
yielded  from  fear;  while,  from  the  steady  increase  of  demo- 
cratic opinions,  protection  after  protection  and  privilege  after 
privilege  have,  even  in  our  own  time,  been  torn  away ;  until  the 
old  institutions,  though  they  retain  their  former  name,  have 
lost  their  former  vigor,  and  there  no  longer  remains  a  doubt 
as  to  what  their  fate  must  ultimately  be.  Nor  need  we  add 
that  in  this  same  country  where,  more  than  in  any  other  of 
Europe,  legislators  are  the  exponents  and  the  servants  of  the 
popular  will,  the  progress  has,  on  this  account,  been  more  un- 
deviating  than  elsewhere ;  there  has  been  neither  anarchy  nor 
revolution;  and  the  world  has  been  made  familiar  with  the 
great  truth  that  one  main  condition  of  the  prosperity  of  a 
people  is  that  its  rulers  shall  have  very  little  power,  that 
they  shall  exercise  that  power  very  sparingly,  and  that  they 
shall  by  no  means  presume  to  raise  themselves  into  supreme 
judges  of  tlie  national  interests,  or  deem  themselves  author- 
ized to  defeat  the  wishes  of  those  for  whose  benefit  alone 
they  occupy  the  post  intrusted  to  them. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

(1803-1882) 

POLITICS  ^ 

In  dealing  with  the  State  we  ought  to  remember  that  its 
institutions  are  not  aboriginal,  though  they  existed  before 
w^e  were  born ;  that  they  are  not  superior  to  the  citizen ;  that 
every  one  of  them  was  once  the  act  of  a  single  man;  every 
law  and  usage  was  a  man's  expedient  to  meet  a  particular 
case ;  that  they  all  are  imitable,  all  alterable ;  we  may  make 
as  good,  we  may  make  better.  Society  is  an  illusion  to  the 
young  citizen.  It  lies  before  him  in  rigid  repose,  with  cer- 
tain names,  men  and  institutions  rooted  like  oak-trees  to  the 
centre,  round  which  all  arrange  themselves  the  best  they 
can.  But  the  old  statesman  knows  that  society  is  fluid:  there 
are  no  such  roots  and  centres,  but  any  particle  may  suddenly 
become  the  centre  of  the  movement  and  compel  the  system 
to  gyrate  round  it;  as  every  man  of  strong  will,  like  Pisis- 
tratus  or  Cromwell,  does  for  a  time,  and  every  man  of  truth, 
like  Plato  or  Paul,  does  forever.  But  politics  rest  on  neces- 
sary foundations,  and  cannot  be  treated  with  levity.  Re- 
publics abound  in  young  civilians  who  believe  that  the  laws 
make  the  city,  that  grave  modifications  of  the  policy  and 
modes  of  living  and  employments  of  the  population,  that 
commerce,  education,  and  religion,  may  be  voted  in  or  out ;  and 
that  any  measure,  though  it  were  absurd,  may  be  imposed  on 
a  people  if  only  you  can  get  sufficient  voices  to  make  it  a 
law.  But  the  wise  know  that  foolish  legislation  is  a  rope 
of  sand  which  perishes  in  the  twisting;  that  the  State  must 
follow  and  not  lead  the  character  and  progress  of  the  citi- 
zen; the  strongest  usurper  is  quickly  got  rid  of;  and  they  only 
who  build  on  Ideas,  build  for  eternity;  and  that  the  form  of 

1  First    published    in    1844    in    the    volume    of    "  Essays :    Second 
Series." 

57 


68  EMERSON 

government  which  prevails  is  the  expression  of  what  culti- 
vation exists  in  the  population  which  permits  it.  The  law 
is  only  a  memorandum.  We  are  superstitious,  and  esteem  the 
statute  somewhat:  so  much  life  as  it  has  in  the  character  of 
living  men  is  its  force.  The  statute  stands  there  to  say, 
Yesterday  we  agreed  so  and  so,  but  how  feel  ye  this  article 
to-day?  Our  statute  is  a  currency  which  we  stamp  witli 
our  own  portrait:  it  soon  becomes  unrecognizable,  and  in 
process  of  time  will  return  to  the  mint.  Nature  is  not  demo- 
cratic nor  limited-monarchical,  but  despotic,  and  will  not  be 
fooled  or  abated  of  any  jot  of  her  authority  by  the  pertest 
of  her  sons;  and  as  fast  as  the  public  mind  is  opened  to  more 
intelligence,  the  code  is  seen  to  be  brute  and  stammering. 
It  speaks  not  articulately,  and  must  be  made  to.  Meantime 
the  education  of  the  general  mind  never  stops.  The  reveries 
of  the  true  and  simple  are  prophetic.  What  the  tender  poetic 
youth  dreams,  and  prays,  and  paints  to-day,  but  shuns  the 
ridicule  of  saying  aloud,  shall  presently  be  the  resolutions 
of  public  bodies;  then  shall  be  carried  as  grievance  and  bill 
of  rights  through  conflict  and  war,  and  then  shall  be  trium- 
phant law  and  establishment  for  a  hundred  years,  until  it 
gives  place  in  turn  to  new  prayers  and  pictures.  The  history 
of  the  State  sketches  in  coarse  outline  the  progress  of  thought, 
and  follows  at  a  distance  the  delicacy  of  culture  and  of  as- 
piration. 

Tlie  theory  of  politics  which  has  possessed  the  mind  of  men, 
and  whicli  they  have  expressed  the  best  they  could  in  their 
laws  and  in  their  revolutions,  considers  persons  and  property 
as  the  two  objects  for  whose  protection  government  exists. 
Of  persons,  all  have  equal  rights,  in  virtue  of  being  identical 
in  nature.  This  interest  of  course  with  its  whole  power  de- 
mands a  democracy.  Whilst  the  rights  of  all  as  persons  are 
equal,  in  virtue  of  their  access  to  reason,  their  riglits  in 
property  are  very  unequal.  One  man  owns  his  clothes,  and 
another  owns  a  county.  This  accident,  depending  primarily 
on  the  skill  and  virtue  of  the  parties,  of  which  there  is  every 
degree,  and  secondarily  on  patrimony,  falls  unequally,  and 
its  rights  of  course  are  unequal.  Personal  rights,  univer- 
sale  the   same,   demand   a   government    framed   on   the   ratio 


E  ^r  E  R  S  O  N  69 

of  the  census ;  property  demands  a  government  framed  on 
the  ratio  of  owners  and  of  owning.  Laban,  who  has  flocks 
and  herds,  wishes  them  looked  after  by  an  officer  on  the 
frontiers,  lest  the  Midianites  shall  drive  them  off;  and  pays 
a  tax  to  that  end.  Jacob  has  no  flocks  or  herds  and  no  fear 
of  the  Midianites,  and  pays  no  tax  to  the  officer.  It  seemed 
fit  that  Laban  and  Jacob  should  have  equal  rights  to  elect  the 
officer  who  is  to  defend  their  persons,  but  that  Laban  and 
not  Jacob  should  elect  the  officer  who  is  to  guard  the  sheep 
and  cattle.  And  if  question  arise  whether  additional  officers 
or  watch-towers  should  be  provided,  must  not  Laban  and  Isaac, 
and  those  wlio  must  sell  part  of  their  herds  to  buy  protection 
for  the  rest,  judge  better  of  this,  and  with  more  right,  than 
Jacob,  who,  because  he  is  a  youth  and  a  traveller,  eats  their 
bread  and  not  his  own  } 

In  the  earliest  society  the  proprietors  made  their  own 
wealth,  and  so  long  as  it  comes  to  the  owners  in  the  direct 
way,  no  other  opinion  would  arise  in  any  equitable  com- 
munity than  that  property  should  make  the  law  for  property, 
and  persons  the  law  for  persons. 

But  property  passes  through  donation  or  inheritance  to 
those  who  do  not  create  it.  Gift,  in  one  case,  makes  it  as 
really  the  new  owner's,  as  labor  made  it  the  first  owner's: 
in  the  other  case,  of  patrimony,  the  law  makes  an  ownership 
which  will  be  valid  in  each  man's  view  according  to  the  estimate 
which  he  sets  on  public  tranquillity 

It  was  not  however  found  easy  to  embody  the  readily 
admitted  principle  that  property  should  make  law  for  prop- 
erty, and  persons  for  persons ;  since  persons  and  property 
mixed  themselves  in  ever}'  transaction.  At  last  it  seemed 
settled  that  the  rightful  distinction  was  that  the  proprietors 
should  have  more  elective  franchise  than  non-proprietors,  on 
the  Spartan  principle  of  "calling  that  which  is  just,  equal; 
not  that  which  is  equal,  just." 

That  principle  no  longer  looks  so  self-evident  as  it  appeared 
in  former  times,  partly  because  doubts  have  arisen  whether 
too  much  weight  had  not  been  allowed  in  the  laws  to  prop- 
erty, and  such  a  structure  given  to  our  usages  as  allowed 
the   rich   to  encroach   on   the   poor,   and  to  keep   them  poor; 


60  EMERSON 

but  mainly  because  there  is  an  instinctive  sense,  however 
obscure  and  yet  inarticulate,  that  the  whole  constitution  of 
property,  on  its  present  tenures,  is  injurious,  and  its  influence 
on  persons  deteriorating  and  degrading;  that  truly  the  only 
interest  for  the  consideration  of  the  State  is  persons;  that 
property  will  always  follow  persons ;  that  the  highest  end  of 
government  is  the  culture  of  men;  and  that  if  men  can  be 
educated,  the  institutions  will  share  their  improvement  and 
the  moral  sentiment  will  write  the  law  of  the  land. 

If  it  be  not  easy  to  settle  the  equity  of  this  question,  the 
peril  is  less  when  we  take  note  of  our  natural  defences.  We 
are  kept  by  better  guards  than  the  vigilance  of  such  magis- 
trates as  we  commonly  elect.  Society  always  consists  in 
greatest  part  of  young  and  foolish  persons.  The  old,  who 
have  seen  through  the  hypocrisy  of  courts  and  statesmen,  die 
and  leave  no  wisdom  to  their  sons.  They  believe  their  own 
newspaper,  as  their  fathers  did  at  their  age.  With  such  an 
ignorant  and  deceivable  majority.  States  would  soon  run  to 
ruin,  but  that  there  are  limitations  beyond  which  the  folly  and 
ambition  of  governors  cannot  go.  Things  have  their  laws, 
as  well  as  men;  and  things  refuse  to  be  trifled  with.  Prop- 
erty will  be  protected.  Corn  will  not  grow  unless  it  is  planted 
and  manured ;  but  the  farmer  will  not  plant  or  hoe  it  unless 
the  chances  are  a  hundred  to  one  that  he  will  cut  and  harvest 
it.  Under  any  forms,  persons  and  property  must  and  will 
have  their  just  sway.  They  exert  their  power,  as  steadily 
as  matter  its  attraction.  Cover  up  a  pound  of  earth  never  so 
cunningly;  divide  and  subdivide  it;  melt  it  to  liquid,  convert 
it  to  gas;  it  will  always  weigh  a  pound;  it  will  always  attract 
and  resist  other  matter  by  the  full  virtue  of  one  pound  weight: 
—  and  the  attributes  of  a  person,  liis  wit  and  his  moral  energy, 
will  exercise,  under  any  law  or  extinguishing  tyranny,  their 
proper  force, —  if  not  overtly,  then  covertly ;  if  not  for  the 
law,  then  against  it;  if  not  wholesomely,  then  poisonously; 
with   right,  or  by  might. 

The  boundaries  of  personal  influence  it  is  impossible  to 
fix,  as  persons  are  organs  of  moral  or  supernatural  force. 
Under  the  dominion  of  an  idea  which  possesses  the  minds  of 
multitudes,   as   civil   freedom,  or  the   religious   sentiment,  the 


EMERSON  61 

powers  of  persons  are  no  longer  subjects  of  calculation.  A 
nation  of  men  unanimously  bent  on  freedom  or  conquest  can 
easily  confound  the  arithmetic  of  statists,  and  achieve  extrava- 
gant actions,  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  means ;  as  the 
Greeks,  the  Saracens,  the  Swiss,  the  Americans,  and  the 
French  have  done. 

In  like  manner  to  every  particle  of  property  belongs  its 
own  attraction.  A  cent  is  the  representative  of  a  certain 
quantity  of  corn  or  other  commodity.  Its  value  is  in  the 
necessities  of  the  animal  man.  It  is  so  much  warmth,  so  much 
bread,  so  much  water,  so  much  land.  The  law  may  do  what 
it  will  with  the  owner  of  property;  its  just  power  will  still 
attach  to  the  cent.  The  law  may  in  a  mad  freak  say  that 
all  shall  have  power  except  the  owners  of  property ;  they  shall 
have  no  vote.  Nevertheless,  by  a  higher  law,  the  property 
will,  year  after  year,  write  every  statute  that  respects  prop- 
erty. The  non-proprietor  will  be  the  scribe  of  the  proprietor. 
What  the  owners  wish  to  do,  the  whole  power  of  property  will 
do,  either  through  the  law  or  else  in  defiance  of  it.  Of  course 
I  speak  of  all  the  property,  not  merely  of  the  great  estates. 
When  the  rich  are  outvoted,  as  frequently  happens,  it  is  the 
joint  treasury  of  the  poor  which  exceeds  their  accumulations. 
Every  man  owns  something,  if  it  is  only  a  cow,  or  a  wheel- 
barrow, or  his  arms,  and  so  has  that  property  to  dispose  of. 

The  same  necessity  which  secures  the  rights  of  person 
and  property  against  the  malignity  or  folly  of  the  magistrate, 
determines  the  form  and  methods  of  governing,  which  are 
proper  to  each  nation  and  to  its  habit  of  thought,  and  no- 
wise transferable  to  other  states  of  society.  In  this  country 
we  are  very  vain  of  our  political  institutions,  which  are 
singular  in  this,  that  they  sprung,  within  the  memory  of  living 
men,  from  the  character  and  condition  of  the  people,  which 
they  still  express  with  sufficient  fidelity, —  and  we  ostenta- 
tiously prefer  them  to  any  other  in  history.  They  are  not 
better,  but  only  fitter  for  us.  We  may  be  wise  in  asserting 
tlie  advantage  in  modern  times  of  the  democratic  form,  but 
to  other  states  of  society,  in  which  religion  consecrated  the 
monarchical,  that  and  not  this  was  expedient.  Democracy  is 
better  for  us,  because  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  present 


62  EMERSON 

time  accords  better  with  it.  Born  democrats^  we  are  nowise 
qualified  to  judge  of  monarchy,  which,  to  our  fathers  living 
in  the  monarchical  idea,  was  also  relatively  right.  But  our 
institutions,  though  in  coincidence  with  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
have  not  any  exemption  from  the  practical  defects  which  have 
discredited  other  forms.  Every  actual  State  is  corrupt. 
Good  men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too  well.  What  satire  on 
government  can  equal  the  severity  of  censure  conve^'ed  in  the 
word  politic,  which  now  for  ages  has  signified  cunning,  in- 
timating that  the  State  is  a  trick.'' 

The  same  benign  necessity  and  the  same  practical  abuse 
appear  in  the  parties,  into  which  each  State  divides  itself,  of 
opponents  and  defenders  of  the  administration  of  the  gov- 
ernment. Parties  are  also  founded  on  instincts,  and  have 
better  guides  to  their  own  humble  aims  than  the  sagacity  of 
their  leaders.  They  have  nothing  perverse  in  their  origin, 
but  rudely  mark  some  real  and  lasting  relation.  We  might 
as  wisely  reprove  the  east  wind  or  the  frost,  as  a  political 
party,  whose  members,  for  the  most  part,  could  give  no  ac- 
count of  their  position,  but  stand  for  the  defence  of  those 
interests  in  which  they  find  themselves.  Our  quarrel  with 
them  begins  when  they  quit  this  deep  natural  ground  at  the 
bidding  of  some  leader,  and  obeying  personal  considerations, 
throw  themselves  into  the  maintenance  and  defence  of  points 
nowise  belonging  to  their  system.  A  party  is  perpetually 
corrupted  by  personality.  Whilst  we  absolve  the  association 
from  dishonesty,  we  cannot  extend  the  same  charity  to  their 
leaders.  They  reap  the  rewards  of  the  docility  and  zeal 
of  the  masses  which  they  direct.  Ordinarily  our  parties  are 
parties  of  circumstance,  and  not  of  principle ;  as  tlie  plant- 
ing interest  in  conflict  with  the  commercial;  the  party  of 
capitalists  and  that  of  operatives:  parties  which  are  identical 
in  their  moral  character,  and  which  can  easily  change  ground 
with  each  other  in  the  support  of  many  of  their  measures. 
Parties  of  principle,  as,  religious  sects,  or  the  party  of  free- 
trade,  of  universal  suffrage,  of  abolition  of  slavery,  of  aboli- 
tion of  capital  ])unislnnent, —  degenerate  into  personalities,  or 
would  ins})ire  enthusiasm.  The  vice  of  our  leading  parties  in 
tliis  country  (which  may  be  cited  as  a  fair  specimen  of  these 


EMERSON  63 

societies  of  opinion)  is  that  they  do  not  plant  themselves 
on  the  deep  and  necessary  grounds  to  which  they  are  respec- 
tively entitled,  but  lash  themselves  to  fury  in  the  carrying 
of  some  local  and  momentary  measure,  nowise  useful  to  the 
commonwealth.  Of  the  two  great  parties  which  at  this  hour 
almost  share  the  nation  between  them,  I  should  say  that 
one  has  the  best  cause,  and  the  other  contains  the  best 
men.  The  philosopher,  the  poet,  or  the  religious  man,  will 
of  course  wish  to  cast  his  vote  with  the  democrat,  for  free- 
trade,  for  wide  suffrage,  for  the  abolition  of  legal  cruelties 
in  the  penal  code,  and  for  facilitating  in  every  manner  the 
access  of  the  young  and  the  poor  to  the  sources  of  wealth 
and  power.  But  he  can  rarely  accept  the  persons  whom  the 
so-called  popular  party  propose  to  him  as  representatives 
of  these  liberalities.  They  have  not  at  heart  the  ends  which 
give  to  the  name  of  democracy  what  hope  and  virtue  are  in 
it.  The  spirit  of  our  American  radicalism  is  destructive  and 
aimless:  it  is  not  loving;  it  has  no  ulterior  and  divine  ends, 
but  is  destructive  only  out  of  hatred  and  selfishness.  On 
the  other  side,  the  conservative  party,  composed  of  the  most 
moderate,  able,  and  cultivated  part  of  the  population,  is 
timid,  and  merely  defensive  of  property.  It  vindicates  no 
right,  it  aspires  to  no  real  good,  it  brands  no  crime,  it  pro- 
poses no  generous  policy;  it  does  not  build,  nor  write,  nor 
cherish  the  arts,  nor  foster  religion,  nor  establish  schools, 
nor  encourage  science,  nor  emancipate  the  slave,  nor  befriend 
the  poor,  or  the  Indian,  or  the  immigrant.  From  neither 
party,  when  in  power,  has  the  world  any  benefit  to  expect 
in  science,  art,  or  humanity,  at  all  commensurate  with  the  re- 
sources of  the  nation. 

I  do  not  for  these  defects  despair  of  our  republic.  We 
are  not  at  the  mercy  of  any  waves  of  chance.  In  the  strife 
of  ferocious  parties,  human  nature  always  finds  itself  cher- 
ished; as  the  children  of  the  convicts  at  Botany  Bay  are 
found  to  have  as  healthy  a  moral  sentiment  as  other  children. 
Citizens  of  feudal  states  are  alarmed  at  our  democratic  in- 
stitutions lapsing  into  anarchy,  and  the  older  and  more  cau- 
tious among  ourselves  are  learning  from  Europeans  to  look 
with  some  terror  at  our  turbulent  freedom.     It  is  said  that 


64  EMERSON 

in  our  license  of  construing  the  Constitution,  and  in  the 
despotism  of  public  opinion,  we  liave  no  anchor ;  and  one 
foreign  observer  thinks  he  has  found  the  safeguard  in  the 
sanctity  of  Marriage  among  us ;  and  another  thinks  he  has 
found  it  in  our  Calvinism.  Fisher  Ames  expressed  the  pop- 
ular security  more  wisely,  when  he  compared  a  monarchy  and 
a  republic,  saying  that  a  monarchy  is  a  merchantman,  which 
sails  well,  but  will  sometimes  strike  on  a  rock  and  go  to  the 
bottom;  whilst  a  republic  is  a  raft,  which  would  never  sink, 
but  then  your  feet  are  always  in  water.  No  forms  can  have 
any  dangerous  importance  whilst  we  are  befriended  by  the 
laws  of  things.  It  makes  no  difference  how  many  tons 
weight  of  atmosphere  presses  on  our  heads,  so  long  as  the 
same  pressure  resists  it  within  the  lungs.  Augment  the  mass 
a  thousand  fold,  it  cannot  begin  to  crush  us,  as  long  as  re- 
action is  equal  to  action.  The  fact  of  two  poles,  of  two 
forces,  centrij^etal  and  centrifugal,  is  universal,  and  each 
force  by  its  own  activity  develops  the  other.  Wild  liberty 
develops  iron  conscience.  Want  of  liberty,  by  strengthening 
law  and  decorum,  stupefies  conscience.  "  Lynch-law  "  pre- 
vails only  where  there  is  greater  hardihood  and  self-sub- 
sistency  in  the  leaders.  A  mob  cannot  be  a  permanency; 
everybody's  interest  requires  that  it  should  not  exist,  and 
only  justice  satisfies  all. 

We  must  trust  infinitely  to  the  beneficent  necessity  which 
shines  through  all  laws.  Human  nature  expresses  itself  in 
them  as  characteristically  as  in  statues,  or  songs,  or  rail- 
roads ;  and  an  abstract  of  the  codes  of  nations  would  be 
a  transcript  of  the  common  conscience.  Governments  have 
their  origin  in  the  moral  identity  of  men.  Reason  for  one 
is  seen  to  be  reason  for  another,  and  for  every  otlier.  There 
is  a  middle  measure  which  satisfies  all  parties,  be  they 
never  so  many  or  so  resohite  for  their  own.  Every  man  finds 
a  sanction  for  his  simplest  claims  and  deeds,  in  decisions 
of  his  own  mind,  which  he  calls  Truth  and  Holiness.  In 
these  decisions  all  the  citizens  find  a  perfect  agreement,  and 
only  in  these;  not  in  what  is  good  to  eat,  good  to  wear,  good 
use  of  time,  or  wliat  amount  of  land  or  of  public  aid  each 
is   entitled  to  claim.      This   truth   and   justice   men   presently 


EMERSON  65 

endeavor  to  make  application  of  to  the  measuring  of  land, 
the  apportionment  of  service,  the  protection  of  life  and  prop- 
erty. Their  first  endeavors,  no  doubt,  are  very  awkward. 
Yet  absolute  right  is  tlie  first  governor;  or,  every  government 
is  an  impure  theocracy.  The  idea  after  which  each  com- 
munity is  aiming  to  make  and  mend  its  law,  is  the  will  of 
the  wise  man.  The  wise  man  it  cannot  find  in  nature,  and 
it  makes  awkward  but  earnest  efforts  to  secure  his  govern- 
ment by  contrivance ;  as  by  causing  the  entire  people  to 
give  their  voices  on  every  measure ;  or  by  a  double  choice 
to  get  the  representation  of  the  whole;  or  by  a  selection  of 
the  best  citizens ;  or  to  secure  the  advantages  of  efficiency 
and  internal  peace  by  confiding  the  government  to  one,  who 
may  himself  select  his  agents.  All  forms  of  government 
symbolize  an  immortal  government,  common  to  all  dynasties 
and  independent  of  numbers,  perfect  where  two  men  exist, 
perfect  where  there  is  only  one  man. 

Every  man's  nature  is  a  sufficient  advertisement  to  him  of 
the  character  of  his  fellows.  My  right  and  my  wrong  is 
their  right  and  their  wrong.  Whilst  I  do  what  is  fit  for 
me,  and  abstain  from  what  is  unfit,  my  neighbor  and  I  shall 
often  agree  in  our  means,  and  work  together  for  a  time  to 
one  end.  But  whenever  I  find  my  dominion  over  myself  not 
sufficient  for  me,  and  undertake  the  direction  of  him  also,  I 
overstep  the  truth,  and  come  into  false  relations  to  him.  I 
may  have  so  much  more  skill  or  strength  than  he  that  he 
cannot  express  adequately  his  sense  of  wrong,  but  it  is  a  lie, 
and  hurts  like  a  lie  both  him  and  me.  Love  and  nature 
cannot  maintain  the  assumption ;  it  must  be  executed  by  a 
practical  lie,  namely  by  force.  This  undertaking  for  another 
is  the  blunder  which  stands  in  colossal  ugliness  in  the  gov- 
ernments of  the  world.  It  is  the  same  thing  in  numbers, 
as  in  a  pair,  only  not  quite  so  intelligible.  I  can  see  well 
enough  a  great  difference  between  my  setting  myself  down 
to  a  self-control,  and  my  going  to  make  somebody  else  act 
after  my  views ;  but  when  a  quarter  of  the  human  race  as- 
sume to  tell  me  what  I  must  do,  I  may  be  too  much  disturbed 
by  the  circumstances  to  see  so  clearly  the  absurdity  of  their 
command.     Therefore  all  public  ends  look  vague  and  quixotic 


66  EMERSON 

beside  private  ones.  For  any  laws  but  those  which  men 
make  for  themselves,  are  laughable.  If  I  put  myself  in  the 
place  of  my  child,  and  we  stand  in  one  thought  and  see  that 
things  are  thus  or  thus,  that  perception  is  law  for  him  and 
me.  We  are  both  there,  both  act.  But  if,  without  carry- 
ing him  into  the  thought,  I  look  over  into  his  plot,  and,  guess- 
ing how  it  is  with  him,  ordain  this  or  that,  he  will  never 
obey  me.  This  is  the  history  of  governments, —  one  man  does 
something  which  is  to  bind  another.  A  man  who  cannot  be 
acquainted  with  me,  taxes  me;  looking  from  afar  at  me 
ordains  that  a  part  of  my  labor  shall  go  to  this  or  that 
whimsical  end,—  not  as  I,  but  as  he  happens  to  fancy.  Be- 
hold the  consequence.  Of  all  debts  men  are  least  willing  to 
pay  the  taxes.  What  a  satire  is  this  on  government !  Every- 
where they  think  they  get  their  money's  worth,  except  for 
these. 

Hence  the  less  government  we  have  the  better, —  the  fewer 
laws,  and  the  less  confided  power.  The  antidote  to  this  abuse 
of  formal  Government  is  the  influence  of  private  character, 
the  growth  of  the  Individual;  the  appearance  of  the  prin- 
cipal to  supersede  the  proxy ;  the  appearance  of  the  wise 
man;  of  whom  the  existing  government  is,  it  must  be  owned, 
but  a  shabby  imitation.  That  whicli  all  things  tend  to  educe; 
which  freedom,  cultivation,  intercourse,  revolutions,  go  to 
form  and  deliver,  is  character;  that  is  the  end  of  Nature, 
to  reach  unto  this  coronation  of  her  king.  To  educate  the 
wise  man  the  State  exists,  and  with  the  appearance  of  the 
wise  man  the  State  expires.  The  appearance  of  character 
makes  the  State  unnecessary.  The  wise  man  is  the  State. 
He  needs  no  army,  fort,  or  navy, —  he  loves  men  too  well ; 
no  bribe,  or  feast,  or  palace,  to  draw  friends  to  him;  no 
vantage  ground,  no  favorable  circumstance.  He  needs  no 
library,  for  he  has  not  done  thinking;  no  church,  for  he  is 
a  prophet;  no  statute  book,  for  lie  has  the  lawgiver;  no 
money,  for  he  is  value;  no  road,  for  he  is  at  home  where  he 
is;  no  experience,  for  the  life  of  the  creator  shoots  through 
him,  and  looks  from  his  eyes.  He  has  no  personal  friends, 
for  he  who  has  the  spell  to  draw  the  prayer  and  piety  of 
all  men  unto  him  needs   not  husband  and  educate   a   few  to 


EMERSON  67 

share  with  him  a  select  and  poetic  life.  His  relation  to  men 
is  angelic ;  his  memory  is  myrrh  to  them ;  his  presence,  frank- 
incense and  flowers. 

We  think  our  civilization  near  its  meridian,  but  we  are 
yet  only  at  the  cock-crowing  and  the  morning  star.  In 
our  barbarous  society  the  influence  of  character  is  in  its  in- 
fancy. As  a  political  power,  as  the  rightful  lord  who  is  to 
tumble  all  rulers  from  their  chairs,  its  presence  is  hardly  yet 
suspected.  Malthus  and  Ricardo  quite  omit  it;  the  Annual 
Register  is  silent;  in  the  Conversations'  Lexicon  it  is  not  set 
down;  the  President's  Message,  the  Queen's  Speech,  have  not 
mentioned  it;  and  yet  it  is  never  nothing.  Every  thought 
which  genius  and  piety  throw  into  the  world,  alters  the  world. 
The  gladiators  in  the  lists  of  power  feel,  through  all  their 
frocks  of  force  and  simulation,  the  presence  of  worth.  I  think 
the  very  strife  of  trade  and  ambition  is  confession  of  this 
divinity ;  and  successes  in  those  fields  are  the  poor  amends, 
the  figleaf  with  which  the  shamed  soul  attempts  to  hide  its 
nakedness.  I  find  the  like  unwilling  homage  in  all  quarters. 
It  is  because  we  know  how  much  is  due  from  us  that  we  are 
impatient  to  show  some  petty  talent  as  a  substitute  for  worth. 
We  are  haunted  by  a  conscience  of  this  right  to  grandeur 
of  character,  and  are  false  to  it.  But  each  of  us  has  some 
talent,  can  do  somewhat  useful,  or  graceful,  or  formidable, 
or  amusing,  or  lucrative.  That  we  do,  as  an  apology  to  others 
and  to  ourselves  for  not  reaching  the  mark  of  a  good  and 
equal  life.  But  it  does  not  satisfy  us,  whilst  we  thrust  it  on 
the  notice  of  our  companions.  It  may  throw  dust  in  their 
eyes,  but  does  not  smooth  our  own  brow,  or  give  us  the 
tranquillity  of  the  strong  when  we  walk  abroad.  We  do 
penance  as  we  go.  Our  talent  is  a  sort  of  expiation,  and 
we  are  constrained  to  reflect  on  our  splendid  moment  with  a 
certain  humiliation,  as  somewhat  too  fine,  and  not  as  one 
act  of  many  acts,  a  fair  expression  of  our  permanent  energy. 
Most  persons  of  ability  meet  in  society  with  a  kind  of  tacit 
appeal.  Each  seems  to  say,  "  I  am  not  all  here."  Senators 
and  presidents  have  climbed  so  high  with  pain  enough,  not 
because  they  think  the  place  specially  agreeable,  but  as  an 
apology  for  real  worth,  and  to  vindicate  their  manhood  in  our 


68  EMERSON 

eyes.  This  conspicuous  chair  is  their  compensation  to  them- 
selves for  being  of  a  poor,  cold,  hard  nature.  They  must 
do  what  they  can.  Like  one  class  of  forest  animals,  they 
have  nothing  but  a  prehensile  tail;  climb  they  must,  or  crawl. 
If  a  man  found  himself  so  rich-natured  that  he  could  enter 
into  strict  relations  with  the  best  persons  and  make  life  serene 
around  him  b}'  the  dignity  and  sweetness  of  his  behavior, 
could  he  aiFord  to  circumvent  the  favor  of  the  caucus  and 
the  press,  and  covet  relations  so  hollow  and  pompous  as  those 
of  a  politician  .'*  Surely  nobody  would  be  a  charlatan  who 
could  afford  to  be  sincere. 

The  tendencies  of  the  times  favor  the  idea  of  self-gov- 
ernment, and  leave  the  individual,  for  all  code,  to  the  re- 
wards and  penalties  of  his  own  constitution ;  which  work 
with  more  energy  than  we  believe  whilst  we  depend  on  arti- 
ficial restraints.  The  movement  in  this  direction  has  been 
very  marked  in  modern  history.  Much  has.  been  blind  and 
discreditable,  but  the  nature  of  the  revolution  is  not  affected 
by  the  vices  of  the  revolters ;  for  this  is  a  purely  moral  force. 
It  was  never  adopted  by  any  party  in  history,  neither  can 
be.  It  separates  the  individual  from  all  party,  and  unites 
him  at  the  same  time  to  the  race.  It  promises  a  recognition 
of  higher  rights  than  those  of  personal  freedom,  or  the  secur- 
ity of  property.  A  man  has  a  right  to  be  employed,  to  be 
trusted,  to  be  loved,  to  be  revered.  The  power  of  love,  as 
the  basis  of  a  State,  has  never  been  tried.  We  must  not 
imagine  that  all  things  are  lapsing  into  confusion  if  every 
tender  protestant  be  not  compelled  to  bear  his  part  in  certain 
social  conventions ;  nor  doubt  that  roads  can  be  built,  letters 
carried,  and  the  fruit  of  labor  secured,  when  the  government 
of  force  is  at  an  end.  Are  our  methods  now  so  excellent 
that  all  competition  is  hopeless  ?  could  not  a  nation  of  friends 
even  devise  better  ways.''  On  tlie  other  liand,  let  not  the 
most  conservative  and  timid  fear  anything  from  a  premature 
surrender  of  the  bayonet  and  the  system  of  force.  For,  ac- 
cording to  the  order  of  nature,  which  is  quite  superior  to  our 
will,  it  stands  thus ;  there  will  always  be  a  government  of 
force  where  men  are  selfish ;  and  wlien  they  are  pure  enough 
to  abjure  the  code  of  force  they  will  be  wise  enough  to  see 


EMERSON  69 

how  these  public  ends  of  the  post-office,  of  the  highway,  of 
commerce  and  the  exchange  of  property,  of  museums  and 
libraries,  of  institutions  of  art  and  science  can  be  answered. 
We  live  in  a  very  low  state  of  the  world,  and  pay  un- 
willing tribute  to  governments  founded  on  force.  There  is 
not,  among  tlie  most  religious  and  instructed  men  of  the  most 
religious  and  civil  nations,  a  reliance  on  the  moral  sentiment 
and  a  sufficient  belief  in  the  unity  of  things,  to  persuade  them 
that  society  can  be  maintained  without  artificial  restraints,  as 
well  as  the  solar  system;  or  that  the  private  citizen  might 
be  reasonable  and  a  good  neighbor,  without  the  hint  of  a 
jail  or  a  confiscation.  What  is  strange  too,  there  never  was 
in  any  man  sufficient  faith  in  the  power  of  rectitude  to  in- 
spire him  with  the  broad  design  of  renovating  the  State  on 
the  principle  of  right  and  love.  All  those  who  have  pre- 
tended this  design  have  been  partial  reformers,  and  have 
admitted  in  some  manner  the  supremacy  of  the  bad  State. 
I  do  not  call  to  mind  a  single  human  being  who  has  steadily 
denied  the  authority  of  the  laws,  on  the  simple  ground  of  his 
own  moral  nature.  Such  designs,  full  of  genius  and  full  of 
faith  as  they  are,  are  not  entertained  except  avowedly  as  air- 
pictures.  If  the  individual  who  exhibits  them  dare  to  think 
them  practicable,  he  disgusts  scholars  and  churchmen;  and 
men  of  talent  and  women  of  superior  sentiments  cannot  hide 
their  contempt.  Not  the  less  does  nature  continue  to  fill  the 
heart  of  youth  with  suggestions  of  this  enthusiasm,  and  there 
are  now  men, —  if  indeed  I  can  speak  in  the  plural  number, 
—  more  exactly,  I  will  say,  I  have  just  been  conversing  with 
one  man,  to  whom  no  weight  of  adverse  experience  will  make 
it  for  a  moment  appear  impossible  that  thousands  of  human 
beings  might  exercise  towards  each  other  the  grandest  and. 
simplest  sentiments,  as  well  as  a  knot  of  friends,  or  a  pair 
of  lovers. 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

(1817-1862) 
ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CIVIL  DISOBEDIENCE  ^ 

I  heartily  accept  the  motto, — "  That  government  is  best 
which  governs  least";  and  I  should  like  to  see  it  acted  up 
to  more  rapidly  and  systematically.  Carried  out,  it  finally 
amounts  to  this,  which  also  I  believe, — "  That  government  is 
best  which  governs  not  at  all";  and  when  men  are  prepared 
for  it,  that  will  be  the  kind  of  government  which  they  will 
have.  Government  is  at  best  but  an  expedient ;  but  most 
governments  are  usually,  and  all  governments  are  sometimes, 
inexpedient.  The  objections  which  have  been  brought  against 
a  standing  army,  and  they  are  many  and  weighty,  and  deserve 
to  prevail,  may  also  at  last  be  brought  against  a  standing 
government.  The  standing  army  is  only  an  arm  of  the  stand- 
ing government.  The  government  itself,  which  is  only  the 
mode  which  the  people  have  chosen  to  execute  their  will,  is 
equally  liable  to  be  abused  and  perverted  before  the  people 
can  act  through  it.  Witness  the  present  Mexican  war,  the 
work  of  comparatively  a  few  individuals  using  the  standing 
government  as  their  tool ;  for,  in  the  outset,  the  people  would 
not  have  consented  to  this  measure. 

This  American  government,—  what  is  it  but  a  tradition, 
though  a  recent  one,  endeavoring  to  transmit  itself  unimpaired 
to  posterity,  but  each  instant  losing  some  of  its  integrity? 
It  has  not  the  vitality  and  force  of  a  single  living  man;  for 
a  single  man  can  bend  it  to  his  will.  It  is  a  sort  of  wooden 
gun  to  the  people  themselves.  But  it  is  not  the  less  neces- 
sary   for   this ;    for   the   people   must   have    some   complicated 

1  First  ])ublishcd  in  1819,  under  the  title  "  Resistance  to  Civil 
Government."  A  few  pages  devoted  to  Tlioreau's  prison  exper- 
iences, and  to  comments  on  and  quotations  from  Daniel  Webster, 
are  omitted  from  the  present  reprint. 

70 


T  H  O  R  E  A  U  71 

machinery  or  other,  and  hear  its  din,  to  satisfy  that  idea 
of  government  which  they  have.  Governments  shovr  thus 
how  successfully  men  can  be  imposed  on,  even  impose  on  them- 
selves, for  their  own  advantage.  It  is  excellent,  we  must 
all  allow.  Yet  this  government  never  of  itself  furthered  any 
enterprise,  but  by  the  alacrity  with  which  it  got  out  of  its 
way.  It  does  not  keep  the  country  free.  It  does  not  settle 
the  West.  It  does  not  educate.  The  character  inherent  in 
the  American  people  has  done  all  that  has  been  accomplished; 
and  it  would  have  done  somewhat  more,  if  the  government 
had  not  sometimes  got  in  its  way.  For  government  is  an 
expedient  by  which  men  would  fain  succeed  in  letting  one  an- 
other alone ;  and,  as  has  been  said,  when  it  is  most  expedient, 
the  governed  are  most  let  alone  by  it.  Trade  and  commerce, 
if  they  were  not  made  of  india-rubber,  would  never  manage 
to  bounce  over  the  obstacles  which  legislators  are  continually 
putting  in  their  way;  and,  if  one  were  to  judge  these  men 
wholly  by  the  effects  of  their  actions  and  not  partly  by  their 
intentions,  they  would  deserve  to  be  classed  and  punished  with 
those  mischievous  persons  who  put  obstructions  on  the  rail- 
roads. 

But,  to  speak  practically  and  as  a  citizen,  unlike  those 
who  call  themselves  no-government  men,  I  ask  for,  not  at 
once  no  government,  but  at  once  a  better  government.  Let 
every  man  make  known  what  kind  of  government  would  com- 
mand his  respect,  and  that  will  be  one  step  toward  obtain- 
ing it. 

After  all,  the  practical  reason  why,  when  the  power  is 
once  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  a  majority  are  permitted, 
and  for  a  long  period  continue,  to  rule  is  not  because  they 
are  most  likely  to  be  in  the  right,  nor  because  this  seems 
fairest  to  the  minority,  but  because  they  are  physically  the 
strongest.  But  a  government  in  which  the  majority  rule  in 
all  cases  cannot  be  based  on  justice,  even  as  far  as  men 
understand  it.  Can  there  not  be  a  government  in  which 
majorities  do  not  virtually  decide  right  and  wrong,  but  con- 
science?—  in  which  majorities  decide  only  those  questions 
to  which  the  rule  of  expediency  is  applicable.''  Must  the 
citizen  ever  for  a  moment,  or  in  the  least  degree,  resign  his 


72  THOREAU 

conscience  to  the  legislator?  Why  has  every  man  a  con- 
science, then?  I  think  that  we  should  be  men  first,  and  sub- 
jects afterward.  It  is  not  desirable  to  cultivate  a  respect 
for  the  law,  so  much  as  for  the  right.  The  only  obligation 
which  I  have  a  right  to  assume  is  to  do  at  any  time  what 
I  think  right.  It  is  truly  enough  said,  that  a  corporation 
has  no  conscience;  but  a  corporation  of  conscientious  men 
is  a  corporation  ivith  a  conscience.  Law  never  made  men  a 
whit  more  just;  and,  by  means  of  their  respect  for  it,  even 
the  well-disposed  are  daily  made  the  agents  of  injustice. 
A  common  and  natural  result  of  an  undue  respect  for  law 
is,  that  you  may  see  a  file  of  soldiers,  colonel,  captain,  cor- 
poral, privates,  powder-monkeys,  and  all,  marching  in  ad- 
mirable order  over  hill  and  dale  to  the  wars,  against  their 
wills,  ay,  against  their  common  sense  and  consciences,  which 
makes  it  very  steep  marching  indeed,  and  produces  a  palpita- 
tion of  the  heart.  They  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  damnable 
business  in  which  they  are  concerned;  they  are  all  peaceably 
inclined.  Now,  what  are  they?  Men  at  all?  or  small  mov- 
able forts  and  magazines,  at  the  service  of  some  unscrupulous 
man  in  power?  Visit  the  Navy-yard,  and  behold  a  marine, 
such  a  man  as  an  American  government  can  make,  or  such 
as  it  can  make  a  man  with  its  black  arts, —  a  mere  shadow 
and  reminiscence  of  humanity,  a  man  laid  out  alive  and  stand- 
ing, and  already,  as  one  may  say,  buried  under  arms  with 
funeral  accompaniments,  though  it  may  be, — 

Not    a    drum    was    heard,   not    a    funeral   note, 
As  his  corse  to  the  rainjiart  we  hurried; 

Not  a  soldier  discharged  his  farewell  shot 
O'er  the  grave  where  our  hero  we  buried. 

The  mass  of  men  serve  the  State  thus,  not  as  men  mainly, 
but  as  machines,  with  tlieir  bodies.  They  are  the  standing 
army,  and  the  militia,  jailers,  constables,  j)osse  comitatus,  etc. 
In  most  cases  there  is  no  free  exercise  whatever  of  the  judg- 
ment or  of  the  moral  sense;  but  they  put  tliemselves  on  a 
level  witli  wood  and  earth  and  stones;  and  wooden  men  can 
perliaps  be  manufactured  that  will  serve  the  purpose  as 
well.     Such  command  no  more  respect  than  men  of  straw  or 


THOREAU  73 

a  lump  of  dirt.  They  have  the  same  sort  of  worth  only  as 
horses  and  dogs.  Yet  such  as  these  even  are  commonly 
esteemed  good  citizens.  Others  —  as  most  legislators,  politi- 
cians, lawyers,  ministers,  and  office-holders  —  serve  the  State 
chiefly  with  their  heads ;  and,  as  they  rarely  make  any  moral 
distinctions,  they  are  as  likely  to  serve  the  Devil,  without 
intending  it,  as  God.  A  very  few,  as  heroes,  patriots,  martyrs, 
reformers  in  the  great  sense,  and  men,  serve  the  State  with 
their  consciences  also,  and  so  necessarily  resist  it  for  the  most 
part;  and  they  are  commonly  treated  as  enemies  by  it.  A 
wise  man  will  only  be  useful  as  a  man,  and  will  not  submit 
to  be  "  clay,"  and  "  stop  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away,"  but 
leave  that  office  to  his  dust  at  least:  — 

I  am  too  high-born  to  be  propertied, 

To  be  a  secondary  at  control, 

Or  useful  serving-man  and  instrument 

To   any   sovereign   state   throughout   the  world. 

He  who  gives  himself  entirely  to  his  fellow-men  appears 
to  them  useless  and  selfish ;  but  he  who  gives  himself  partially 
to  them  is  pronounced  a  benefactor  and  philanthropist. 

How  does  it  become  a  man  to  behave  toward  this  American 
government  to-day  ?  I  answer,  that  he  cannot  without  dis- 
grace be  associated  with  it.  I  cannot  for  an  instant  recognize 
that  political  organization  as  my  government  which  is  the 
slave's  government  also. 

All  men  recognize  the  right  of  revolution ;  that  is,  the  right 
to  refuse  allegiance  to,  and  to  resist,  the  government,  when 
its  tyranny  or  its  inefficiency  are  great  and  unendurable.  But 
almost  all  say  that  such  is  not  the  case  now.  But  such 
was  the  case,  they  think,  in  the  Revolution  of  '75.  If  one 
were  to  tell  me  that  this  was  a  bad  government  because  it 
taxed  certain  foreign  commodities  brought  to  its  ports,  it  is 
most  probable  that  I  should  not  make  an  ado  about  it,  for 
I  can  do  without  them.  All  machines  have  their  friction; 
and  possibly  this  does  enough  good  to  counterbalance  tlie 
evil.  At  any  rate,  it  is  a  great  evil  to  make  a  stir  about  it. 
But  when  the  friction  comes  to  have  its  machine,  and  oppres- 
sion and  robbery  are  organized,   I  say,  let  us  not  have  such 


74  THOREAU 

a  machine  any  longer.  In  other  words,  when  a  sixth  of  the 
population  of  a  nation  which  has  undertaken  to  be  the  refuge 
of  liberty  are  slaves,  and  a  whole  country  is  unjustly  over- 
run and  conquered  by  a  foreign  army,  and  subjected  to  mili- 
tary law,  I  think  that  it  is  not  too  soon  for  honest  men  to 
rebel  and  revolutionize.  What  makes  this  duty  the  more 
urgent  is  the  fact  that  the  country  so  overrun  is  not  our  own, 
but  ours  is  the  invading  army. 

Paley,  a  common  authority  with  many  on  moral  questions, 
in  his  chapter  on  the  "  Duty  of  Submission  to  Civil  Govern- 
ment," resolves  all  civil  obligation  into  expediency;  and  he 
proceeds  to  say,  "  that  so  long  as  the  interest  of  the  whole 
society  requires  it,  that  is,  so  long  as  the  established  gov- 
ernment cannot  be  resisted  or  changed  without  public  incon- 
veniency,  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  the  established  govern- 
ment be  obeyed,  and  no  longer.  .  .  .  This  principle  being  ad- 
mitted, the  justice  of  every  particular  case  of  resistance  is  re- 
duced to  a  computation  of  the  quantity  of  the  danger  and 
grievance  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  probability  and  expense 
of  redressing  it  on  the  other."  Of  this,  he  says,  every  man 
shall  judge  for  himself.  But  Paley  appears  never  to  have 
contemplated  those  cases  to  which  the  rule  of  expediency  docs 
not  apply,  in  which  a  people,  as  well  as  an  individual,  must 
do  justice,  cost  what  it  may.  If  I  have  unjustly  wrested 
a  plank  from  a  drowning  man,  I  must  restore  it  to  him 
though  I  drown  myself.  This,  according  to  Paley,  would  be 
inconvenient.  But  he  that  would  save  his  life,  in  such  a  case, 
shall  lose  it.  This  peo2)le  must  cease  to  hold  slaves,  and  to 
make  war  on  Mexico,  though  it  cost  them  their  existence  as  a 
people. 

In  their  practice,  nations  agree  witli  Paley;  but  does  any 
one  think  that  Massachusetts  does  exactly  what  is  right  at  the 
present  crisis? 

A  drab  of  state,  a  cloth-o'-silver  slut, 

To  have  her  train  borne  up,  and  her  soul  trail  in  the  dirt. 

Practically  speaking,  tlie  o])ponents  to  a  reform  in  Massa- 
chusetts are  not  a  hundred  thousand  j)()liticians  at  the  South, 
but   a    hundred   thousand   merchants   and   farmers   here,    who 


THOREAU  76 

are  more  interested  in  commerce  and  agriculture  than  they 
are  in  humanity,  and  are  not  prepared  to  do  justice  to  the 
slave  and  to  Mexico,  cost  xvhat  it  may,  I  quarrel  not  with 
far-ofF  foes,  but  with  those  who,  near  at  home,  co-operate 
with,  and  do  the  bidding  of,  those  far  away,  and  without 
whom  the  latter  would  be  harmless.  We  are  accustomed  to 
say  that  the  mass  of  men  are  unprepared ;  but  improvement 
is  slow,  because  the  few  are  not  materially  wiser  or  better 
than  the  many.  It  is  not  so  important  that  many  should 
be  as  good  as  you,  as  that  there  be  some  absolute  goodness 
somewhere;  for  that  will  leaven  the  whole  lump.  There  are 
thousands  who  are  in  opinion  opposed  to  slavery  and  to  the 
war,  and  who  yet  in  effect  do  nothing  to  put  an  end  to  them; 
who,  esteeming  themselves  children  of  Washington  and  Frank- 
lin, sit  down  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets,  and  say  that 
they  know  not  what  to  do,  and  do  nothing;  who  even  post- 
pone the  question  of  freedom  to  the  question  of  free-trade, 
and  quietly  read  the  prices-current  along  with  the  latest  ad- 
vices from  Mexico,  after  dinner,  and,  it  may  be,  fall  asleep 
over  them  both.  W^hat  is  the  price-current  of  an  honest  man 
and  patriot  to-day  ?  They  hesitate,  and  they  regret,  and  some- 
times they  petition ;  but  they  do  nothing  in  earnest  and  with 
eiFect.  They  will  wait,  well  disposed,  for  others  to  remedy 
the  evil,  that  they  may  no  longer  have  it  to  regret.  At  most, 
they  give  only  a  cheap  vote,  and  a  feeble  countenance  and 
God-speed,  to  the  right,  as  it  goes  by  them.  There  are  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  patrons  of  virtue  to  one  virtuous 
man.  But  it  is  easier  to  deal  with  the  real  possessor  of  a 
thing  than  with  the  temporary  guardian  of  it. 

All  voting  is  a  sort  of  gaming,  like  checkers  or  backgammon, 
with  a  slight  moral  tinge  to  it,  a  playing  with  right  and  wrong, 
with  moral  questions;  and  betting  naturally  accompanies  it. 
The  character  of  the  voters  is  not  staked.  I  cast  my  vote, 
perchance,  as  I  think  right;  but  I  am  not  vitally  concerned 
that  that  right  should  prevail.  I  am  willing  to  leave  it  to  the 
majority.  Its  obligation,  therefore,  never  exceeds  that  of 
expediency.  Even  voting  for  the  right  is  doing  nothing  for  it. 
It  is  only  expressing  to  men  feebly  your  desire  that  it  should 
prevail.     A  wise  man  will  not  leave  the  right  to  the  mercy 


76  THOREAU 

of  chance,  nor  wish  it  to  prevail  through  the  power  of  the 
majority.  There  is  but  little  virtue  in  the  action  of  masses 
of  men.  When  the  majority  shall  at  length  vote  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  it  will  be  because  they  are  indifferent 
to  slavery,  or  because  there  is  but  little  slavery  left  to  be 
abolished  by  their  vote.  Theij  will  then  be  the  only  slaves. 
Only  his  vote  can  hasten  the  abolition  of  slavery  who  asserts 
his  own  freedom  by  his  vote. 

I  hear  of  a  convention  to  be  held  at  Baltimore,  or  elsewhere, 
for  the  selection  of  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  made  up 
chiefly  of  editors,  and  men  who  are  politicians  by  profes- 
sion; but  I  think,  what  is  it  to  any  independent,  intelligent, 
and  respectable  man  what  decision  they  may  come  to  ?  Shall 
we  not  have  the  advantage  of  his  wisdom  and  honesty,  never- 
theless ?  Can  we  not  count  upon  some  independent  votes  ? 
Are  there  not  many  individuals  in  the  country  who  do  not  at- 
tend conventions  ?  But  no :  I  find  that  the  respectable  man, 
so  called,  has  immediately  drifted  from  his  position,  and  de- 
spairs of  his  country,  when  liis  country  has  more  reason  to 
despair  of  him.  He  forthwith  adopts  one  of  the  candidates 
thus  selected  as  the  only  available  one,  thus  proving  that  he  is 
himself  available  for  any  purposes  of  the  demagogue.  His 
vote  is  of  no  more  worth  than  that  of  any  unprincipled  for- 
eigner or  hireling  native,  who  may  have  been  bought.  O  for 
a  man  who  is  a  man,  and,  as  my  neighbor  says,  has  a  bone 
in  his  back  which  you  cannot  pass  your  hand  through !  Our 
statistics  are  at  fault:  the  population  has  been  returned  too 
large.  How  many  men  are  there  to  a  square  thousand  miles 
in  this  country.''  Hardly  one.  Does  not  America  offer  any 
inducement  for  men  to  settle  liere?  The  American  has 
dwindled  into  an  Odd  Fellow, —  one  who  may  be  known  by 
the  development  of  liis  organ  of  gregariousncss,  and  a  mani- 
fest lack  of  intellect  and  cheerful  self-reliance;  whose  first 
and  chief  concern,  on  coming  into  the  world,  is  to  see  that 
the  Almshouses  are  in  good  repair;  and,  before  yet  he  has 
lawfully  donned  the  virile  garb,  to  collect  a  fund  for  the 
support  of  the  widows  and  orphans  that  may  be;  who,  in 
short,  ventures  to  live  only  by  the  aid  of  the  Mutual  Insur- 
ance company,  which  has  promised  to  bury   him  decently. 


THOREAU  77 

It  is  not  a  man's  duty,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  eradication  of  any,  even  the  most  enormous  wrong; 
he  may  still  properly  have  other  concerns  to  engage  him; 
but  it  is  his  duty,  at  least,  to  wash  his  hands  of  it,  and,  if 
he  gives  it  no  thought  longer,  not  to  give  it  practically  his 
support.  If  I  devote  myself  to  other  pursuits  and  contempla- 
tions, I  must  first  see,  at  least,  that  I  do  not  pursue  them 
sitting  upon  another  man's  shoulders.  I  must  get  off  him 
first,  that  he  may  pursue  his  contemplations  too.  See  what 
gross  inconsistency  is  tolerated.  I  have  heard  some  of  my 
townsmen  say,  "  I  should  like  to  have  them  order  me  out 
to  help  put  down  an  insurrection  of  the  slaves,  or  to  march 
to  Mexico;  —  see  if  I  would  go";  and  yet  these  very  men 
have  each,  directly  by  their  allegiance,  and  so  indirectly,  at 
least,  by  their  money,  furnished  a  substitute.  The  soldier  is 
applauded  who  refuses  to  serve  in  an  unjust  war  by  those 
who  do  not  refuse  to  sustain  the  unjust  government  which 
makes  the  war ;  is  applauded  by  those  whose  own  act  and 
authority  he  disregards  and  sets  at  naught;  as  if  the  State 
were  penitent  to  that  degree  that  it  hired  one  to  scourge  it 
while  it  sinned,  but  not  to  that  degree  that  it  left  off  sinning 
for  a  moment.  Thus,  under  the  name  of  Order  and  Civil 
Government,  we  are  all  made  at  last  to  pay  homage  to  and 
support  our  own  meanness.  After  the  first  blush  of  sin  comes 
its  indifference;  and  from  immoral  it  becomes,  as  it  were,  un- 
moral, and  not  quite  unnecessary  to  that  life  which  we  have 
made. 

The  broadest  and  most  prevalent  error  requires  the  most 
disinterested  virtue  to  sustain  it.  The  slight  reproach  to 
which  the  virtue  of  patriotism  is  commonly  liable,  the  noble 
are  most  likely  to  incur.  Those  who,  while  they  disapprove  of 
the  character  and  measures  of  a  government,  yield  to  it  their 
allegiance  and  support  are  undoubtedly  its  most  conscientious 
supporters,  and  so  frequently  the  most  serious  obstacles  to 
reform.  Some  are  petitioning  the  State  to  dissolve  the  Union, 
to  disregard  the  requisitions  of  the  President.  Why  do  they 
not  dissolve  it  themselves, —  the  union  between  themselves  and 
the  State, —  and  refuse  to  pay  their  quota  into  its  treasury? 
Do  not  they  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  State  that  the 


78  THOREAU 

State  does  to  the  Union?  And  have  not  the  same  reasons 
prevented  the  State  from  resisting  the  Union  which  have  pre- 
vented them  from  resisting  the   State? 

How  can  a  man  be  satisfied  to  entertain  an  opinion  merely 
and  enjoy  it?  Is  there  any  enjoyment  in  it,  if  liis  opinion 
is  that  he  is  aggrieved?  If  you  are  cheated  out  of  a  single 
dollar  by  your  neighbor,  you  do  not  rest  satisfied  with  know- 
ing that  you  are  cheated,  or  with  saying  that  you  are  cheated, 
or  even  with  petitioning  him  to  pay  you  your  due ;  but  you 
take  effectual  steps  at  once  to  obtain  the  full  amount,  and 
see  that  you  are  never  cheated  again.  Action  from  prin- 
ciple, the  perception  and  the  performance  of  right,  changes 
things  and  relations ;  it  is  essentially  revolutionary,  and  does 
not  consist  wholly  with  anything  which  was.  It  not  only 
divides  states  and  churches,  it  divides  families ;  ay,  it  divides 
the  individual,  separating  the  diabolical  in  him  from  the  divine. 

Unjust  laws  exist:  shall  we  be  content  to  obey  them,  or 
shall  we  endeavor  to  amend  them,  and  obey  them  until  we 
have  succeeded,  or  shall  we  transgress  them  at  once?  Men 
generally,  under  such  a  government  as  this,  think  that  they 
ouglit  to  wait  until  they  have  persuaded  the  majority  to  alter 
them.  They  think  that,  if  they  should  resist,  the  remedy 
would  be  worse  than  the  evil.  But  it  is  the  fault  of  the  gov- 
ernment itself  that  the  remedy  is  worse  than  the  evil.  It 
makes  it  worse.  Why  is  it  not  more  apt  to  anticipate  and 
provide  for  reform?  Wliv  does  it  not  cherish  its  wide  minor- 
ity? Why  does  it  cry  and  resist  before  it  is  hurt?  Why 
does  it  not  encourage  its  citizens  to  be  on  the  alert  to  point 
out  its  faults,  and  do  better  than  it  would  have  them?  Why 
does  it  always  crucify  Christ,  and  excommunicate  Copernicus 
and  I.uther,  and  pronounce  Washington  and  Franklin  rebels  ? 

One  would  tliink,  that  a  deliberate  and  practical  denial 
of  its  authority  was  the  only  offense  never  contemplated  by 
government;  else,  why  lias  it  not  assigned  its  definite,  its 
suitabk;  and  proportionate  j)enalty?  If  a  man  who  lias  no 
property  refuses  but  once  to  earn  nine  sliillings  for  the  State, 
he  is  put  in  prison  for  a  period  unlimited  by  any  law  that 
I  know,  and  determined  only  by  the  discretion  of  those  who 
placed  Iiim  tliere;  but  if  he  should  steal  ninety  times  nine 


THOREAU  79 

shillings  from  the  State,  he  is  soon  permitted  to  go  at  large 
again. 

If  the  injustice  is  part  of  the  necessary  friction  of  the 
machine  of  government,  let  it  go,  let  it  go:  perchance  it  will 
wear  smooth, —  certainly  the  machine  will  wear  out.  If  the 
injustice  has  a  spring,  or  a  pulley,  or  a  rope,  or  a  crank, 
exclusively  for  itself,  then  perhaps  you  may  consider  whether 
the  remedy  will  not  be  worse  than  the  evil;  but  if  it  is  of  such 
a  nature  that  it  requires  you  to  be  the  agent  of  injustice 
to  another,  then,  I  say,  break  the  law.  Let  your  life  be  a 
counter-friction  to  stop  the  machine.  What  I  have  to  do  is 
to  see,  at  any  rate,  that  I  do  not  lend  myself  to  the  wrong 
which  I  condemn. 

As  for  adopting  the  ways  which  the  State  has  provided 
for  remedying  the  evil,  I  know  not  of  such  ways.  They 
take  too  much  time,  and  a  man's  life  will  be  gone.  I  have 
other  affairs  to  attend  to.  I  came  into  this  world,  not  chiefly 
to  make  this  a  good  place  to  live  in,  but  to  live  in  it,  be  it 
good  or  bad.  A  man  has  not  everything  to  do,  but  some- 
thing; and  because  he  cannot  do  everything,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  he  should  do  something  wrong.  It  is  not  my  busi- 
ness to  be  petitioning  the  Governor  or  the  Legislature  any 
more  than  it  is  theirs  to  petition  me ;  and  if  they  should 
not  hear  my  petition,  what  should  I  do  then.''  But  in  this 
case  the  State  has  provided  no  way:  its  very  Constitution  is 
the  evil.  This  may  seem  to  be  harsh  and  stubborn  and  un- 
conciliatory ;  but  it  is  to  treat  with  the  utmost  kindness  and 
consideration  the  only  spirit  that  can  appreciate  or  deserves 
it.  So  is  all  change  for  the  better,  like  birth  and  death,  which 
convulse  the  body. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  those  who  call  themselves 
Abolitionists  should  at  once  effectually  withdraw  their  sup- 
port, both  in  person  and  jjroperty,  from  the  government  of 
Massachusetts,  and  not  wait  till  they  constitute  a  majority  of 
one,  before  they  suffer  the  right  to  prevail  through  them. 
I  think  that  it  is  enough  if  they  have  God  on  their  side, 
without  waiting  for  that  other  one.  Moreover,  any  man  more 
right  than  his  neighbors  constitutes  a  majority  of  one  already. 

I  meet  this  American  government,  or  its  representative,  the 


80  THOREAU 

state  government,  directly,  and  face  to  face,  once  a  year  — 
no  more  —  in  the  person  of  its  tax-gatherer;  this  is  the  only 
mode  in  which  a  man  situated  as  I  am  necessarily  meets  it ; 
and  it  then  says  distinctly.  Recognize  me;  and  the  simplest, 
the  most  effectual,  and,  in  the  present  posture  of  affairs,  the 
indispensablest  mode  of  treating  with  it  on  this  head,  of  ex- 
pressing your  little  satisfaction  with  and  love  for  it,  is  to 
deny  it  then.  My  civil  neighbor,  the  tax-gatherer,  is  the  very 
man  I  have  to  deal  with, —  for  it  is,  after  all,  with  men  and 
not  with  parchment  that  I  quarrel, —  and  he  has  voluntarily 
chosen  to  be  an  agent  of  the  government.  How  shall  he  ever 
know  well  what  he  is  and  does  as  an  officer  of  the  govern- 
ment, or  as  a  man,  until  he  is  obliged  to  consider  whether 
he  shall  treat  me,  his  neighbor,  for  whom  he  has  respect, 
as  a  neighbor  and  well-disposed  man,  or  as  a  maniac  and  dis- 
turber of  the  peace,  and  see  if  he  can  get  over  this  obstruction 
to  his  neighborliness  without  a  ruder  and  more  impetuous 
thought  or  speech  corresponding  with  his  action.  I  know  this 
well,  that  if  one  thousand,  if  one  hundred,  if  ten  men  whom 
I  could  name  • —  if  ten  honest  men  only  —  ay,  if  one  honest 
man,  in  this  State  of  Massachusetts,  ceasing  to  hold  slaves, 
were  actually  to  withdraw  from  this  co-partnership,  and  be 
locked  up  in  the  county  jail  therefor,  it  would  be  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  America.  For  it  matters  not  how  small  the 
beginning  may  seem  to  be:  what  is  once  well  done  is  done  for- 
ever. But  we  love  better  to  talk  about  it:  that  we  say  is  our 
mission.  Reform  keeps  many  scores  of  newspapers  in  its 
service,  but  not  one  man.  If  my  esteemed  neighbor,  the 
State's  ambassador,  who  will  devote  his  days  to  the  settle- 
ment of  the  question  of  human  rights  in  the  Council  Chamber, 
instead  of  being  threatened  with  the  prisons  of  Carolina,  were 
to  sit  down  the  prisoner  of  Massachusetts,  tliat  State  which  is 
so  anxious  to  foist  the  sin  of  slavery  upon  her  sister, —  though 
at  present  she  can  discover  only  an  act  of  inhospitality  to  be 
the  ground  of  a  quarrel  with  her, — the  Legislature  would  not 
wholly   waive  the   subject   the   following  winter. 

Under  a  government  which  imprisons  any  unjustly,  the  true 
place  for  a  just  man  is  also  a  prison.  The  proper  place 
to-day,  the  only  place  which  Massachusetts  has  provided  for 


THOREAU  81 

her  freer  and  less  desponding  spirits,  is  in  her  prisons,  to 
be  put  out  and  locked  out  of  the  State  by  her  own  act,  as 
they  have  already  put  themselves  out  by  their  principles.  It 
is  there  that  the  fugitive  slave,  and  the  Mexican  prisoner 
on  parole,  and  the  Indian  come  to  plead  the  wrongs  of  his 
race,  should  find  them;  on  that  separate,  but  more  free 
and  honorable  ground,  where  the  State  places  those  who  are 
not  with  her,  but  against  her, —  the  only  liouse  in  a  slave  State 
in  which  a  free  man  can  abide  with  honor.  If  any  think 
that  their  influence  would  be  lost  there,  and  their  voices 
no  longer  afflict  the  ear  of  the  State,  that  they  would  not  be 
as  an  enemy  within  its  walls,  they  do  not  know  by  how  much 
truth  is  stronger  than  error,  nor  how  much  more  eloquently 
and  effectively  he  can  combat  injustice  who  has  experienced 
a  little  in  his  own  person.  Cast  your  whole  vote,  not  a  strip 
of  paper  merely,  but  your  whole  influence.  A  minority  is 
powerless  while  it  conforms  to  the  majority;  it  is  not  even 
a  minority  then;  but  it  is  irresistible  when  it  clogs  by  its  whole 
weight.  If  the  alternative  is  to  keep  all  just  men  in  prison, 
or  give  up  war  and  slavery,  the  State  will  not  hesitate  which 
to  clioose.  If  a  thousand  men  were  not  to  pay  their  tax-bills 
this  year,  that  would  not  be  a  violent  and  bloody  measure,  as 
it  would  be  to  pay  them,  and  enable  the  State  to  commit 
violence  and  shed  innocent  blood.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  defini- 
tion of  a  peaceful  revolution,  if  any  such  is  possible.  If  the 
tax-gatherer,  or  any  other  public  officer,  asks  me,  as  one  has 
done,  "  But  what  shall  I  do?  "  my  answer  is,  "  If  you  really 
wish  to  do  anything,  resign  your  office."  When  the  subject 
has  refused  allegiance,  and  the  officer  has  resigned  his  office, 
then  the  revolution  is  accomplished.  But  even  suppose  blood 
should  flow.  Is  there  not  a  sort  of  blood  shed  when  the 
conscience  is  wounded?  Through  this  wound  a  man's  real 
manhood  and  immortality  flow  out,  and  he  bleeds  to  an  ever- 
lasting death.     I   see  this  blood  flowing  now. 

I  have  contemplated  the  imprisonment  of  the  offender, 
rather  than  the  seizure  of  his  goods, —  though  both  will  serve 
tlie  same  purpose, —  because  they  who  assert  the  purest  right, 
and  consequently  are  most  dangerous  to  a  corrupt  State, 
commonly  have  not  spent  much  time  in  accumulating  prop- 


82  THOREAU 

erty.  To  such  the  State  renders  comparatively  small  service, 
and  a  slight  tax  is  wont  to  appear  exorbitant,  particularly  if 
they  are  obliged  to  earn  it  by  special  labor  with  their  hands. 
If  there  were  one  who  lived  wholly  without  the  use  of  money, 
the  State  itself  would  hesitate  to  demand  it  of  him.  But 
the  rich  man  —  not  to  make  any  invidious  comparison  —  is 
always  sold  to  the  institution  which  makes  him  rich.  Abso- 
lutely speaking,  the  more  money  the  less  virtue;  for  money 
comes  between  a  man  and  his  objects,  and  obtains  them  for 
him;  and  it  was  certainly  no  great  virtue  to  obtain  it.  It  puts 
to  rest  many  questions  which  he  would  otherwise  be  taxed  to 
answer;  while  the  only  new  question  wliich  it  puts  is  the 
hard  but  superfluous  one,  how  to  spend  it.  Thus  his  moral 
ground  is  taken  from  under  his  feet.  The  opportunities  of 
living  are  diminished  in  proportion  as  what  are  called  the 
"  means  "  are  increased.  The  best  thing  a  man  can  do  for  his 
culture  when  he  is  rich  is  to  endeavor  to  carry  out  those 
schemes  which  he  entertained  when  he  was  poor.  Christ  an- 
swered the  Herodians  according  to  their  condition.  "  Show 
me  the  tribute-money,"  said  he;  —  and  one  took  a  penny  out 
of  his  pocket;  —  if  you  use  money  whicli  has  the  image  of 
Caesar  on  it,  and  which  he  has  made  current  and  valuable, 
that  is,  if  you  are  men  of  the  State,  and  gladly  enjoy  the  ad- 
vantages of  Caesar's  government,  then  pay  him  back  some  of 
his  own  when  he  demands  it.  "  Render  therefore  to  Caesar 
that  which  is  Caesar's,  and  to  God  those  tilings  which  are 
God's," —  leaving  them  no  wiser  than  before  as  to  which 
was  whicli ;  for  they  did  not  wish  to  know. 

When  I  converse  with  the  freest  of  my  neighbors,  I  perceive 
that,  whatever  they  may  say  about  the  magnitude  and  serious- 
ness of  the  question,  and  their  regard  for  the  public  tran- 
quillity, the  long  and  the  short  of  the  matter  is,  that  they 
cannot  spare  the  protection  of  the  existing  government,  and 
they  dread  the  consequences  to  their  proi)erty  and  families 
of  disobedience  to  it.  For  my  own  part,  I  should  not  like 
to  think  that  I  ever  rely  on  the  protection  of  the  State.  But, 
if  I  deny  the  authority  of  the  State  when  it  presents  its  tax- 
bill,  it  will  soon  take  and  waste  all  my  property,  and  so  harass 
me  and  mv  children  without  end.     This  is  hard.     This  makes 


THOREAU  83 

it  impossible  for  a  man  to  live  honestly,  and  at  the  same 
time  comfortably,  in  outward  respects.  It  will  not  be  worth 
the  while  to  accumulate  property ;  that  would  be  sure  to  go 
again.  You  must  hire  or  squat  somewhere,  and  raise  but  a 
small  crop,  and  eat  that  soon.  You  must  live  within  yourself, 
and  depend  upon  yourself  always  tucked  up  and  ready  for 
a  start,  and  not  have  many  affairs.  A  man  may  grow  rich  in 
Turkey  even,  if  he  will  be  in  all  respects  a  good  subject 
of  the  Turkish  government.  Confucius  said:  "  If  a  state 
is  governed  by  the  principles  of  reason,  poverty  and  misery 
are  subjects  of  shame;  if  a  state  is  not  governed  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  reason,  riches  and  honors  are  the  subjects  of  shame." 
No:  until  I  want  the  protection  of  Massachusetts  to  be  ex- 
tended to  me  in  some  distant  Southern  port,  where  my  liberty 
is  endangered,  or  until  I  am  bent  solely  on  building  up  an 
estate  at  home  by  peaceful  enterprise,  I  can  afford  to  refuse 
allegiance  to  Massachusetts,  and  her  right  to  my  property  and 
life.  It  costs  me  less  in  every  sense  to  incur  the  penalty  of 
disobedience  to  the  State  than  it  would  to  obey.  I  should  feel 
as  if  I  were  worth  less  in  that  case. 

Some  years  ago  the  State  met  me  in  behalf  of  the  Church, 
and  commanded  me  to  pay  a  certain  sum  toward  the  support 
of  a  clergyman  whose  preaching  my  father  attended,  but 
never  I  myself.  "  Pay,"  it  said,  "  or  be  locked  up  in  the  jail." 
I  declined  to  pay.  But,  unfortunately,  another  man  saw  fit 
to  pay  it.  I  did  not  see  why  the  schoolmaster  should  be  taxed 
to  support  the  priest,  and  not  the  priest  the  schoolmaster; 
for  I  was  not  the  State's  schoolmaster,  but  I  supported  my- 
self by  voluntary  subscriptions.  I  did  not  see  why  the  lyceum 
should  not  present  its  tax-bill,  and  have  the  State  to  back 
its  demand,  as  well  as  the  Church.  However,  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  selectmen,  I  condescended  to  make  some  such 
statement  as  this  in  writing: — "Know  all  men  by  these 
presents,  that  I,  Henry  Thoreau,  do  not  wish  to  be  regarded 
as  a  member  of  any  incorporated  society  which  I  have  not 
joined."  This  I  gave  to  the  town  clerk;  and  he  has  it.  The 
State,  having  thus  learned  that  I  did  not  wish  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  member  of  that  church,  has  never  made  a  like  de- 
mand on  me  since;  though  it  said  that  it  must  adhere  to  its 


84  THOREAU 

original  presumption  that  time.  If  I  had  known  how  to  name 
them,  I  should  then  have  signed  off  in  detail  from  all  the  so- 
cieties which  I  never  signed  on  to;  but  I  did  not  know  where 
to  find  a  complete  list. 

I  have  paid  no  poll-tax  for  six  years.  I  was  put  into  a  jail 
once  on  this  account,  for  one  night;  and,  as  I  stood  con- 
sidering the  walls  of  solid  stone,  two  or  three  feet  thick, 
the  door  of  wood  and  iron,  a  foot  thick,  and  the  iron  grating 
which  strained  the  light,  I  could  not  help  being  struck  with  the 
foolishness  of  that  institution  which  treated  me  as  if  I  were 
mere  flesh  and  blood  and  bones,  to  be  locked  up.  I  wondered 
that  it  should  have  concluded  at  length  that  this  was  the  best 
use  it  could  put  me  to,  and  had  never  thought  to  avail  itself  of 
my  services  in  some  way.  I  saw  that,  if  there  was  a  wall  of 
stone  between  me  and  my  townsmen,  there  was  a  still  more 
difficult  one  to  climb  or  break  through  before  they  could  get 
to  be  as  free  as  I  was.  I  did  not  for  a  moment  feel  con- 
fined, and  the  walls  seemed  a  great  waste  of  stone  and  mortar. 
I  felt  as  if  I  alone  of  all  my  townsmen  had  paid  my  tax. 
They  plainly  did  not  know  how  to  treat  me,  but  behaved  like 
persons  who  are  underbred.  In  every  threat  and  in  every 
compliment  there  was  a  blunder;  for  they  thought  that  my 
cliief  desire  was  to  stand  the  other  side  of  that  stone  wall.  I 
could  not  but  smile  to  see  how  industriously  they  locked  the 
door  on  my  meditations,  which  followed  them  out  again 
without  let  or  hindrance,  and  they  were  really  all  that  was 
dangerous.  As  they  could  not  reach  me,  they  had  resolved  to 
punish  my  body;  just  as  boys,  if  they  cannot  come  at  some 
person  against  whom  they  have  a  spite,  will  abuse  his  dog. 
I  saw  that  the  State  was  half-witted,  that  it  was  timid  as  a 
lone  woman  with  her  silver  spoons,  and  that  it  did  not  know 
its  friends  from  its  foes,  and  I  lost  all  my  remaining  re- 
spect for  it,  and  pitied  it. 

Thus  the  State  never  intentionally  confronts  a  man's  sense, 
intellectual  or  moral,  but  only  his  body,  his  senses.  It  is 
not  armed  with  superior  wit  or  honesty,  but  with  superior 
physical  strength.  I  was  not  born  to  be  forced.  I  will 
breathe  after  my  own  fasliion.  Let  us  see  who  is  the  strong- 
est.    What  force  has  a  multitude?     They  only  can  force  me 


THOREAU  85 

who  obey  a  higher  law  than  I.  They  force  me  to  become 
like  themselves.  I  do  not  hear  of  men  being  forced  to  live 
this  way  or  that  by  masses  of  men.  What  sort  of  life  were 
that  to  live.^  When  I  meet  a  government  which  says  to  me, 
"  Your  money  or  your  life,"  why  should  I  be  in  haste  to  give 
it  my  money .''  It  may  be  in  a  great  strait,  and  not  know 
what  to  do:  I  cannot  help  that.  It  must  help  itself;  do  as  I 
do.  It  is  not  worth  the  while  to  snivel  about  it.  I  am  not 
responsible  for  the  successful  working  of  the  machinery  of 
society.  I  am  not  the  son  of  the  engineer.  I  perceive  that, 
when  an  acorn  and  a  chestnut  fall  side  by  side,  the  one  does 
not  remain  inert  to  make  way  for  the  other,  but  both  obey 
their  own  laws,  and  spring  and  grow  and  flourish  as  best 
they  can,  till  one,  perchance,  overshadows  and  destroys  the 
other.  If  a  plant  cannot  live  according  to  its  nature,  it  dies; 
and  so  a  man. 

I  have  never  declined  paying  the  highway  tax,  because  I  am 
as  desirous  of  being  a  good  neighbor  as  I  am  of  being  a  bad 
subject;  and  as  for  supporting  schools,  I  am  doing  my  part 
to  educate  my  fellow-countrymen  now.  It  is  for  no  par- 
ticular item  in  the  tax-bill  that  I  refuse  to  pay  it.  I  simply 
wish  to  refuse  allegiance  to  the  State,  to  withdraw  and  stand 
aloof  from  it  effectually.  I  do  not  care  to  trace  the  course 
of  my  dollar,  if  I  could,  till  it  buys  a  man  or  a  musket  to 
shoot  one  with, —  the  dollar  is  innocent,  but  I  am  con- 
cerned to  trace  the  effects  of  my  allegiance.  In  fact,  I 
quietly  declare  war  with  the  State,  after  my  fashion,  though 
I  will  still  make  what  use  and  get  what  advantage  of  her  I 
can,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases. 

If  others  pay  the  tax  which  is  demanded  of  me,  from  a 
sympathy  with  the  State,  they  do  but  what  they  have  already 
done  in  their  own  case,  or  rather  they  abet  injustice  to  a 
greater  extent  than  the  State  requires.  If  they  pay  the  tax 
from  a  mistaken  interest  in  the  individual  taxed,  to  save  his 
property,  or  prevent  his  going  to  jail,  it  is  because  they  have 
not  considered  wisely  how  far  they  let  their  private  feelings 
interfere  with  the  public  good. 

This,  then,  is  my  position  at  present.     But  one  cannot  be 


86  THOREAU 

too  much  on  his  guard  in  such  a  case,  lest  his  action  be  biased 
by  obstinacy  or  an  undue  regard  for  the  opinions  of  men. 
Let  him  see  that  he  does  only  what  belongs  to  himself  and 
to  the  hour. 

I  think  sometimes,  Why,  this  people  mean  well,  they  are 
only  ignorant ;  they  would  do  better  if  they  knew  how :  why 
give  your  neighbors  this  pain  to  treat  you  as  they  are  not 
inclined  to?  But  I  think  again,  This  is  no  reason  why  I 
should  do  as  they  do,  or  permit  others  to  suffer  much  greater 
pain  of  a  different  kind.  Again,  I  sometimes  say  to  my- 
self. When  many  millions  of  men,  without  heat,  without  ill- 
will,  without  personal  feeling  of  any  kind,  demand  of  you 
a  few  shillings  only,  without  possibility,  such  is  their  con- 
stitution, of  retracing  or  altering  their  present  demand,  and 
without  the  possibility,  on  your  side,  of  appeal  to  any  other 
millions,  why  expose  yourself  to  tliis  overwhelming  brute 
force  ?  You  do  not  resist  cold  and  hunger,  the  winds  and  the 
waves,  thus  obstinately ;  you  quietly  submit  to  a  thousand 
similar  necessities.  You  do  not  put  your  head  into  the  tire. 
But  just  in  proportion  as  I  regard  this  as  not  wholly  a  brute 
force,  but  partly  a  human  force,  and  consider  that  I  have 
relations  to  those  millions  as  to  so  many  millions  of  men,  and 
not  of  mere  brute  or  inanimate  things,  I  see  that  appeal  is 
possible,  first  and  instantaneously,  from  them  to  the  Maker 
of  them,  and,  secondly,  from  them  to  themselves.  But  if  I 
put  my  head  deliberately  into  the  fire,  there  is  no  appeal  to 
fire  or  to  the  Maker  of  fire,  and  I  have  only  myself  to  blame. 
If  I  could  convince  myself  that  I  have  any  right  to  be  satis- 
fied with  men  as  they  are,  and  to  treat  them  accordingly, 
and  not  according,  in  some  respects,  to  my  requisitions  and 
expectations  of  what  they  and  I  ought  to  be,  then,  like  a 
good  Mussulman  and  fatalist,  I  should  endeavor  to  be  satis- 
fied with  things  as  they  are,  and  say  it  is  the  will  of  God. 
And,  above  all,  there  is  this  difference  between  resisting  this 
and  a  purely  brute  or  natural  force,  that  I  can  resist  this 
with  some  effect;  but  I  cannot  expect,  like  Orpheus,  to  change 
the  nature  of  the  rocks  and  trees  and  beasts. 

I  do  not  wish  to  quarrel  with  any  man  or  nation.  I  do 
not  wish  to  split  hairs,  to  make  fine  distinctions,  or  set  my- 


THOREAU  87 

self  up  as  better  than  my  neighbors.  I  seek  rather,  I  may 
say,  even  an  excuse  for  conforming  to  the  laws  of  the  land. 
I  am  but  too  ready  to  conform  to  them.  Indeed,  I  have 
reason  to  suspect  myself  on  this  head;  and  each  year,  as  the 
tax-gatherer  comes  round,  I  find  myself  disposed  to  review 
the  acts  and  position  of  the  general  and  State  governments, 
and  the  spirit  of  the  people,  to  discover  a  pretext  for  con- 
formity. 

We    must    affect   our   country    as    our    parents, 

And  if  at  any  time  we  alienate 

Our  love  or  industry  from  doing  it  honor, 

We    must    respect   effects    and   teach   the   soul 

Matter  of  conscience  and   religion, 

And  not  desire  of  rule  or  benefit. 

I  believe  that  the  State  will  soon  be  able  to  take  all  my  work 
of  this  sort  out  of  my  hands,  and  then  I  shall  be  no  better 
a  patriot  than  my  fellow-countrymen.  Seen  from  a  lower 
point  of  view,  the  Constitution,  with  all  its  faults,  is  very 
good ;  the*  law  and  the  courts  are  very  respectable ;  even  this 
State  and  this  American  government  are,  in  many  respects, 
very  admirable,  and  rare  things,  to  be  thankful  for,  such  as 
a  great  many  liave  described  them ;  but  seen  from  a  point 
of  view  a  little  higher,  they  are  what  I  have  described  them; 
seen  from  a  higher  still,  and  the  highest,  who  shall  say  what 
they  are,  or  that  they  are  wortli  looking  at  or  thinking  of  at 
all.? 

However,  the  government  does  not  concern  me  much,  and 
I  sliall  bestow  the  fewest  possible  thoughts  on  it.  It  is 
not  many  moments  tliat  I  live  under  a  government,  even  in 
this  world.  If  a  man  is  thought-free,  fancy-free,  imagina- 
tion-free, that  which  is  not  never  for  a  long  time  appearing 
to  be  to  him,  unwise  rulers  or  reformers  cannot  fatally  inter- 
rupt him. 

I  know  that  most  men  think  differently  from  myself;  but 
those  whose  lives  are  by  profession  devoted  to  the  study  of 
these  or  kindred  subjects  content  me  as  little  as  any.  States- 
men and  legislators,  standing  so  completely  within  the  in- 
stitution, never  distinctly  and  nakedly  behold  it.      They  speak 


88  THOREAU 

of  moving  society,  but  have  no  resting-place  without  it. 
They  may  be  men  of  a  certain  experience  and  discrimination, 
and  have  no  doubt  invented  ingenious  and  even  useful  sys- 
tems, for  which  we  sincerely  thank  them;  but  all  their  wit 
and  usefulness  lie  within  certain  not  very  wide  limits.  They 
are  wont  to  forget  that  tlie  world  is  not  governed  by  policy 
and  expediency.  .  .  .  The  lawyer's  truth  is  not  Truth,  but 
consistency  or  a  consistent  expediency.  Truth  is  always  in 
harmony  with  herself,  and  is  not  concerned  chiefly  to  reveal 
the  justice  that  may  consist  with  wrong-doing.   .   .   . 

They  who  know  of  no  purer  sources  of  truth,  who  have 
traced  up  its  stream  no  higher,  stand,  and  wisely  stand,  by 
the  Bible  and  the  Constitution,  and  drink  at  it  there  with 
reverence  and  humility ;  but  they  who  behold  where  it  comes 
trickling  into  this  lake  or  that  pool,  gird  up  their  loins  once 
more,  and  continue  their  pilgrimage  toward  its  fountain- 
head.  .  .  .  For  eighteen  hundred  years,  though  perchance  I 
have  no  right  to  say  it,  the  New  Testament  has  been  written; 
yet  where  is  the  legislator  who  has  wisdom  and  practical 
talent  enough  to  avail  himself  of  the  light  which  it  sheds  on 
the  science  of  legislation? 

The  authority  of  government,  even  such  as  I  am  willing 
to  submit  to, —  for  I  will  cheerfully  obey  those  who  know 
and  can  do  better  than  I,  and  in  many  things  even  those 
who  neither  know  nor  can  do  so  well, —  is  still  an  impure 
one:  to  be  strictly  just,  it  must  have  the  sanction  and  con- 
sent of  the  governed.  It  can  have  no  pure  right  over  my 
person  and  property  but  what  I  concede  to  it.  The  progress 
from  an  absolute  to  a  limited  monarcliy,  from  a  limited  mon- 
arcliy  to  a  democracy,  is  a  progress  toward  a  true  respect 
for  the  individual.  Even  the  Chinese  philosopher  was  wise 
enough  to  regard  the  individual  as  the  basis  of  the  empire. 
Is  a  democracy,  such  as  we  know  it,  the  last  improvement 
possible  in  government?  Is  it  not  possible  to  take  a  step 
further  towards  recognizing  and  organizing  the  rights  of 
man?  There  will  never  be  a  really  free  and  enlightened 
State  until  the  State  comes  to  recognize  the  individual  as  a 
higlier  and  independent  power,  from  which  all  its  own  power 
and    authority    are    derived,    and    treats    him    accordingly.     I 


THOREAU  89 

please  myself  with  imagining  a  State  at  last  which  can  afford 
to  be  just  to  all  men,  and  to  treat  the  individual  with  respect 
as  a  neighbor;  which  even  would  not  think  it  inconsistent 
with  its  own  repose  if  a  few  were  to  live  aloof  from  it,  not 
meddling  with  it,  nor  embraced  by  it,  who  fulfilled  all  the 
duties  of  neighbors  and  fellow-men.  A  State  which  bore 
this  kind  of  fruit,  and  suffered  it  to  drop  off  as  fast  as  it 
ripened,  would  prepare  the  way  for  a  still  more  perfect  and 
glorious  State,  which  also  I  have  imagined,  but  not  yet  any- 
where seen. 


HERBERT  SPEXCER 

(1820-1903) 

THE  RIGHT  TO  IGNORE  THE  STATE  ^ 

1.  As  a  corollary  to  tlie  proposition  that  all  institutions 
must  be  subordinated  to  the  law  of  equal  freedom,  we  cannot 
choose  but  admit  the  right  of  the  citizen  to  adopt  a  condition 
of  voluntary  outlawry.  If  every  man  has  freedom  to  do  all 
that  he  wills,  provided  he  infringes  not  the  equal  freedom  of 
any  other  man,  then  he  is  free  to  drop  connection  with  the 
State, —  to  relinquish  its  protection  and  to  refuse  paying  to- 
ward its  support.  It  is  self-evident  that  in  so  behaving  be 
in  no  way  trenches  upon  the  liberty  of  others ;  for  his  posi- 
tion is  a  passive  one,  and  whilst  passive  he  cannot  become  an 
aggressor.  It  is  equally  self-evident  that  he  cannot  be  com- 
pelled to  continue  one  of  a  political  corporation  without  a 
breach  of  the  moral  law,  seeing  that  citizenship  involves  pay- 
ment of  taxes ;  and  the  taking  away  of  a  man's  property 
against  his  will  is  an  infringement  of  his  rights.  Govern- 
ment being  simply  an  agent  employed  in  common  by  a  num- 
ber of  individuals  to  secure  to  them  certain  advantages,  the 
very  nature  of  the  connection  implies  that  it  is  for  each 
to  say  whether  he  will  employ  such  an  agent  or  not.  If  any 
one  of  them  determines  to  ignore  this  mutual-safety  con- 
federation, nothing  can  be  said  except  that  he  loses  all  claim 
to   its    good   offices,   and   exposes    himself   to   the    danger   of 

1  From  the  first  edition  of  "  Social  Statics,"  published  in  London 
in  1850.  When,  after  ten  years,  the  first  small  edition  was  ex- 
hausted, the  book  was  allowed  to  go  out  of  print  in  England;  but 
for  some  twenty-five  years  thereafter  Speneer's  publishers  con- 
tinued to  supply  the  English  market  by  inijiorting  editions  in  sheets 
printed  from  the  plates  of  Messrs.  Apjiletons'  American  reprint. 
In  189:2  Si)eneer  published  in  both  England  and  America  a  volume 
of  excerpts  from  "  Soeial  Statics,"  in  which  the  chapter  here  given, 
along  with  about  half  the  remaining  contents  of  the  original  work, 
did  not  appear. 

90 


SPENCER  91' 

maltreatment, —  a  thing  he  is  quite  at  liberty  to  do  if  he 
likes.  He  cannot  be  coerced  into  political  combination  with- 
out a  breach  of  the  law  of  equal  freedom;  he  can  withdraw 
from  it  without  committing  any  such  breach ;  and  he  has 
therefore  a  right  so  to  withdraw. 

2.  "  No  human  laws  are  of  any  validity  if  contrary  to  the 
law  of  nature;  and  such  of  them  as  are  valid  derive  all  their 
force  and  all  their  authority  mediately  or  immediately  from 
this  original."  Thus  writes  Blackstone,  to  whom  let  all 
honor  be  given  for  having  so  far  outseen  the  ideas  of  his 
time, —  and,  indeed,  we  may  say  of  our  time.  A  good  anti- 
dote, this,  for  those  political  superstitions  which  so  widely  pre- 
vail. A  good  check  upon  that  sentiment  of  power-worship 
which  still  misleads  us  by  magnifying  the  prerogatives  of 
constitutional  governments  as  it  once  did  those  of  monarchs. 
I^t  men  learn  that  a  legislature  is  not  "  our  God  upon  earth," 
though,  by  the  authority  they  ascribe  to  it  and  the  things  they 
expect  from  it,  they  would  seem  to  think  it  is.  Let  them 
learn  rather  that  it  is  an  institution  serving  a  purely  tempo- 
rary purpose,  whose  pov/er,  when  not  stolen,  is  at  the  best 
borrowed. 

Nay,  indeed,  have  we  not  seen  that  government  is  essen- 
tially immoral?  Is  it  not  the  offspring  of  evil,  bearing 
about  it  all  the  marks  of  its  parentage.'^  Does  it  not  exist 
because  crime  exists.''  Is  it  not  strong,  or,  as  we  say,  des- 
potic, when  crime  is  great.''  Is  there  not  more  liberty  — 
that  is,  less  government  —  as  crime  diminishes  ?  And  must 
not  government  cease  when  crime  ceases,  for  very  lack  of  ob- 
jects on  which  to  perform  its  functions?  Not  only  does 
magisterial  power  exist  because  of  evil,  but  it  exists  by 
evil.  Violence  is  employed  to  maintain  it;  and  all  violence 
involves  criminality.  Soldiers,  policemen,  and  jailers;  swords, 
batons,  and  fetters, —  are  instruments  for  inflicting  pain;  and 
all  infliction  of  pain  is  in  the  abstract  wrong.  The  State 
employs  evil  weapons  to  subjugate  evil,  and  is  alike  con- 
taminated by  the  objects  with  which  it  deals  and  the  means 
by  which  it  works.  Morality  cannot  recognize  it;  for  mo- 
rality, being  simply  a  statement  of  the  perfect  law,  can  give 
no   countenance   to   anything  growing  out  of,   and  living   by. 


92  SPENCER 

breaches  of  that  law.  Wherefore  legislative  authority  can 
never  be  ethical  —  must  always  be  conventional  merely. 

Hence  there  is  a  certain  inconsistency  in  the  attempt  to 
determine  the  right  position,  structure,  and  conduct  of  a 
government  by  appeal  to  the  first  principles  of  rectitude. 
For,  as  just  pointed  out,  the  acts  of  an  institution  which  is  in 
both  nature  and  origin  imperfect  cannot  be  made  to  square 
with  the  perfect  law.  All  that  we  can  do  is  to  ascertain, 
firstly,  in  what  attitude  a  legislature  must  stand  to  the  com- 
munity to  avoid  being  by  its  mere  existence  an  embodied 
wrong;  secondly,  in  what  manner  it  must  be  constituted  so 
as  to  exhibit  the  least  incongruity  with  the  moral  law ;  and, 
thirdly,  to  what  sphere  its  actions  must  be  limited  to  pre- 
vent it  from  multiplying  those  breaches  of  equity  it  is  set  up  to 
prevent. 

The  first  condition  to  be  conformed  to  before  a  legislature 
can  be  established  without  violating  the  law  of  equal  free- 
dom is  the  acknowledgement  of  the  right  now  under  discus- 
sion —  the  right  to  ignore  the  State. 

3.  Upholders  of  pure  despotism  may  fitly  believe  State- 
control  to  be  unlimited  and  unconditional.  They  who  assert 
tliat  men  are  made  for  governments  and  not  governments 
for  men  may  consistently  liold  that  no  one  can  remove  him- 
self beyond  the  pale  of  political  organization.  But  they  who 
maintain  tliat  the  people  are  the  only  legitimate  source  of 
power  —  that  legislative  authority  is  not  original,  but  de- 
puted —  cannot  deny  the  right  to  ignore  the  State  without 
entangling  themselves   in   an   absurdity. 

For,  if  legislative  authority  is  deputed,  it  follows  that  those 
from  whom  it  proceeds  are  the  masters  of  those  on  whom  it  is 
conferred:  it  follows  further  that  as  masters  they  confer  the 
said  authority  voluntarily:  and  this  implies  tliat  they  may 
give  or  withhold  it  as  they  please.  To  call  that  deputed 
which  is  wrenched  from  men  whether  they  will  or  not  is  non- 
sense. But  what  is  here  true  of  all  collectively  is  equally 
true  of  each  separately.  As  a  government  can  rightly  act 
for  the  people  only  when  em])owered  by  them,  so  also  can  it 
rightly  act  for  the  individual  only  when  empowered  by  him. 
If  A,  B,  and  C  debate  whether  they  shall  employ  an  agent  to 


SPENCER  93 

perform  for  them  a  certain  service^  and  if,  whilst  A  and  B 
agree  to  do  so,  C  dissents,  C  cannot  equitably  be  made  a  party 
to  the  agreement  in  spite  of  liimself.  And  this  must  be  equally 
true  of  thirty  as  of  three:  and  if  of  thirty  why  not  of  three 
liundred,  or  three  thousand,  or  three  millions  ? 

4.  Of  the  political  superstitions  lately  alluded  to,  none  is 
so  universally  diffused  as  the  notion  that  majorities  are  om- 
nipotent. Under  the  impression  that  the  preservation  of  or- 
der will  ever  require  power  to  be  wielded  by  some  party,  the 
moral  sense  of  our  time  feels  that  such  power  cannot  rightly 
be  conferred  on  any  but  the  largest  moiety  of  society.  It 
interprets  literally  the  saying  that  "  the  voice  of  the  people 
is  the  voice  of  God,"  and,  transferring  to  the  one  the  sacred- 
ness  attached  to  the  other,  it  concludes  that  from  the  will 
of  the  people  —  that  is,  of  the  majority  —  there  can  be  no 
appeal.     Yet  is  this  belief  entirely  erroneous. 

Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that,  struck  by  some  Mal- 
thusian  panic,  a  legislature  duly  representing  public  opinion 
were  to  enact  that  all  children  born  during  the  next  ten  years 
should  be  drowned.  Does  any  one  think  such  an  enactment 
would  be  warrantable.''  If  not,  there  is  evidently  a  limit  to 
the  power  of  a  majority.  Supjiose,  again,  that  of  two  races 
living  together  • —  Celts  and  Saxons,  for  example  —  the  most 
numerous  determined  to  make  the  others  their  slaves.  Would 
the  authority  of  the  greatest  number  be  in  such  case  valid? 
If  not,  there  is  something  to  which  its  authority  must  be  sub- 
ordinate. Suppose,  once  more,  that  all  men  having  incomes 
under  =£50  a  year  were  to  resolve  upon  reducing  every  income 
above  that  amount  to  their  own  standard,  and  appropriating 
the  excess  for  public  purposes.  Could  their  resolution  be 
justified?  If  not,  it  must  be  a  third  time  confessed  that 
there  is  a  law  to  which  the  popular  voice  must  defer.  What, 
then,  is  that  law,  if  not  the  law  of  pure  equity  —  the  law 
of  equal  freedom  ?  These  restraints,  which  all  would  put  to 
the  will  of  the  majority,  are  exactly  the  restraints  set  up  by 
that  law.  We  deny  the  right  of  a  majority  to  murder,  to 
enslave,  or  to  rob,  simply  because  murder,  enslaving,  and 
robbery  are  violations  of  that  law  —  violations  too  gross  to 
be   overlooked.     But  if  great  violations   of  it  are   wrong,   so 


94  SPENCER 

also  are  smaller  ones.  If  the  will  of  the  many  cannot  super- 
sede the  first  principle  of  morality  in  these  cases,  neither  can 
it  in  any.  So  that,  howev'er  insignificant  the  minority,  and 
however  trifling  the  proposed  trespass  against  their  rights, 
no  such  trespass  is  permissible. 

When  we  have  made  our  constitution  purely  democratic, 
thinks  to  himself  the  earnest  reformer,  we  shall  have  brought 
government  into  harmony  with  absolute  justice.  Such  a  faith, 
though  perhaps  needful  for  the  age,  is  a  very  erroneous  one. 
By  no  process  can  coercion  be  made  equitable.  The  freest 
form  of  government  is  only  the  least  objectionable  form. 
The  rule  of  the  many  by  the  few  we  call  tyranny:  the  rule 
of  the  few  by  the  many  is  tyranny  also,  only  of  a  less  in- 
tense kind.  "  You  shall  do  as  ve  will,  and  not  as  you  will," 
is  in  either  case  the  declaration ;  and  if  the  hundred  make 
it  to  the  ninety-nine,  instead  of  the  ninety-nine  to  the  hun- 
dred, it  is  only  a  fraction  less  immoral.  Of  two  such  par- 
ties, whichever  fulfills  this  declaration  necessarily  breaks  the 
law  of  equal  freedom:  the  only  difference  being  that  by  the 
one  it  is  broken  in  the  persons  of  ninety-nine,  whilst  by  the 
other  it  is  broken  in  the  persons  of  a  hundred.  And  the 
merit  of  the  democratic  form  of  government  consists  solel^v  in 
this,  that  it  trespasses  against  the  smaller  number. 

The  very  existence  of  majorities  and  minorities  is  indica- 
tive of  an  immoral  state.  Tlie  man  whose  character  har- 
monizes with  the  moral  law,  we  found  to  be  one  who  can 
obtain  complete  happiness  without  diminishing  the  happiness 
of  his  fellows.  But  the  enactment  of  public  arrangements 
by  vote  implies  a  society  consisting  of  men  otherwise  con- 
stituted —  implies  that  the  desires  of  some  cannot  be  satis- 
fied witliout  sacrificing  the  desires  of  others  —  implies  that 
in  the  pursuit  of  their  ha])piness  the  majority  inflict  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  jynhajjpincss  on  the  minority  —  implies,  there- 
fore, organic  immorality.  Thus,  from  another  point  of  view, 
we  again  perceive  that  even  in  its  most  equitable  form  it  is 
impossible  for  government  to  dissociate  itself  from  evil;  and 
further,  that  unless  the  right  to  ignore  the  State  is  recognized, 
its  acts  must  be  essentially  criminal. 

5.      That  a  man  is  free  to  abandon  the  benefits  and  throw 


SPENCER  95 

off  the  burdens  of  citizenship,  may  indeed  be  inferred  from  the 
admissions  of  existing  authorities  and  of  current  opinion. 
Unprepared  as  they  probably  are  for  so  extreme  a  doctrine  as 
the  one  here  maintained,  the  radicals  of  our  day  yet  un- 
wittingly profess  their  belief  in  a  maxim  which  obviously  em- 
bodies this  doctrine.  Do  we  not  continually  hear  them  quote 
Blackstone's  assertion  that  "  no  subject  of  England  can  be 
constrained  to  pay  any  aids  or  taxes  even  for  the  defense 
of  the  realm  or  the  support  of  government,  but  such  as  are 
imposed  by  his  own  consent,  or  that  of  his  representatives  in 
parliament "  ?  And  what  does  this  mean  ?  It  means,  say 
they,  that  every  man  should  have  a  vote.  True :  but  it  means 
much  more.  If  there  is  any  sense  in  words,  it  is  a  distinct 
enunciation  of  the  very  right  now  contended  for.  In  affirm- 
ing that  a  man  may  not  be  taxed  unless  he  has  directly  or  in- 
directly given  his  consent,  it  affirms  that  he  may  refuse  to  be 
so  taxed;  and  to  refuse  to  be  taxed  is  to  cut  all  connection 
with  the  State.  Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  this  consent  is 
not  a  specific,  but  a  general  one,  and  that  the  citizen  is  un- 
derstood to  have  assented  to  everything  his  representative 
may  do,  when  he  voted  for  him.  But  suppose  he  did  not  vote 
for  him;  and  on  the  contrary  did  all  in  his  power  to  get 
elected  some  one  holding  opposite  views  —  what  then.''  The 
reply  will  probably  be  that,  by  taking  part  in  such  an  elec- 
tion, he  tacitly  agreed  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  majority. 
And  how  if  he  did  not  vote  at  all?  Why  then  he  cannot 
justly  complain  of  any  tax,  seeing  that  he  made  no  protest 
against  its  imposition.  So,  curiously  enough,  it  seems  that 
he  gave  his  consent  in  whatever  way  he  acted  —  whether 
he  said  yes,  whether  he  said  no,  or  whether  he  remained 
neuter!  A  rather  awkward  doctrine,  this.  Here  stands  an 
unfortunate  citizen  who  is  asked  if  he  will  pay  money  for  a 
certain  proffered  advantage;  and  whether  he  employs  the 
only  means  of  expressing  his  refusal  or  does  not  employ  it, 
we  are  told  that  he  practically  agrees,  if  only  the  number  of 
others  who  agree  is  greater  than  the  number  of  those  who 
dissent.  And  thus  we  are  introduced  to  the  novel  principle 
that  A's  consent  to  a  thing  is  not  determined  by  what  A  s^ys, 
but  by  what  B  may  happen  to  say ! 


96  SPENCER 

It  is  for  those  who  quote  Blackstone  to  choose  between  this 
absurdity  and  the  doctrine  above  set  forth.  Either  his  maxim 
implies  the  right  to  ignore  the  State,  or  it  is  sheer  nonsense. 

6.  There  is  a  strange  heterogeneity  in  our  political  faiths. 
Systems  that  have  had  their  day,  and  are  beginning  here  and 
there  to  let  the  daylight  through,  are  patched  with  modern 
notions  utterly  unlike  in  quality  and  color ;  and  men  gravely 
display  these  systems,  wear  them,  and  walk  about  in  them, 
quite  unconscious  of  their  grotesqueness.  This  transition 
state  of  ours,  partaking  as  it  does  equally  of  the  past  and  the 
future,  breeds  hybrid  theories  exhibiting  the  oddest  union  of 
bygone  despotism  and  coming  freedom.  Here  are  types  of  the 
old  organization  curiously  disguised  by  germs  of  the  new  — 
peculiarities  showing  adaptation  to  a  preceding  state  modi- 
fied by  rudiments  that  prophesy  of  something  to  come  — 
making  altogether  so  chaotic  a  mixture  of  relationships  that 
there  is  no  saying  to  what  class  these  births  of  the  age  should 
be  referred. 

As  ideas  must  of  necessity  bear  the  stamp  of  the  time,  it  is 
useless  to  lament  the  contentment  with  which  these  incon- 
gruous beliefs  are  held.  Otherwise  it  would  seem  unfortunate 
that  men  do  not  pursue  to  the  end  the  trains  of  reasoning 
which  have  led  to  these  partial  modifications.  In  the  present 
case,  for  example,  consistency  would  force  them  to  admit 
that,  on  other  points  besides  the  one  just  noticed,  they  hold 
opinions  and  use  arguments  in  which  the  right  to  ignore  the 
State  is  involved. 

For  what  is  the  meaning  of  Dissent?  The  time  was  when 
a  man's  faith  and  his  mode  of  worship  were  as  much  de- 
terminable by  law  as  his  secular  acts ;  and,  according  to  pro- 
visions extant  in  our  statute-book,  are  so  still.  Thanks  to 
the  growth  of  a  Protestant  spirit,  however,  we  have  ignored 
the  State  in  this  matter  —  wholly  in  theory,  and  partly  in 
practice.  But  how  have  we  done  so?  By  assuming  an  atti- 
tude which,  if  consistently  maintained,  implies  a  right  to  ig- 
nore the  State  entirely.  Observe  the  positions  of  the  two 
parties.  "This  is  your  creed,"  says  the  legislator;  "you 
must  believe  and  openly  profess  what  is  here  set  down  for 
you."     "  I  shall  not  do  anything  of  the  kind,"  answers  the 


SPENCER  97 

nonconformist;  "I  will  go  to  prison  rather."  "Your  re- 
ligious ordinances,"  pursues  the  legislator,  "  shall  be  such  as 
we  have  prescribed.  You  shall  attend  the  churches  we  have 
endowed,  and  adopt  the  ceremonies  used  in  them."  "  Noth- 
ing shall  induce  me  to  do  so,"  is  the  reply;  "I  altogether 
deny  your  power  to  dictate  to  me  in  such  matters,  and  mean 
to  resist  to  the  uttermost."  "  Lastly,"  adds  the  legislator, 
"  we  shall  require  you  to  pay  such  sums  of  money  toward  the 
support  of  these  religious  institutions  as  we  may  see  fit  to 
ask."  "  Not  a  farthing  will  you  have  from  me,"  exclaims  our 
sturdy  Independent:  "  even  did  I  believe  in  the  doctrines  of 
your  church  (which  I  do  not),  I  should  still  rebel  against 
your  interference;  and  if  you  take  my  property  it  shall  be 
by  force  and  under  protest." 

What  now  does  this  proceeding  amount  to  when  regarded  in 
the  abstract?  It  amounts  to  an  assertion  by  the  individual  of 
the  right  to  exercise  one  of  his  faculties  —  the  religious  sen- 
timent —  without  let  or  hindrance,  and  with  no  limit  save 
that  set  up  by  the  equal  claims  of  others.  And  what  is  meant 
by  ignoring  the  State.''  Simply  an  assertion  of  the  right 
similarly  to  exercise  all  the  faculties.  The  one  is  just  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  other  —  rests  on  the  same  footing  with  the 
other  —  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  other.  Men  do  indeed 
speak  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  as  dift'erent  things:  but 
the  distinction  is  quite  arbitrary.  They  are  parts  of  the  same 
whole,  and  cannot  philosophically  be  separated. 

"Yes  they  can/'  interposes  an  objector;  "assertion  of  the 
one  is  imperative  as  being  a  religious  duty.  The  liberty  to 
worship  God  in  the  way  that  seems  to  him  right  is  a  liberty 
without  which  a  man  cannot  fulfill  what  he  believes  to  be 
Divine  commands,  and  therefore  conscience  requires  him  to 
maintain  it."  True  enough;  but  how"  if  the  same  can  be  as- 
serted of  all  other  liberty  ?  How  if  maintenance  of  this  also 
turns  out  to  be  a  matter  of  conscience?  Have  we  not  seen 
that  human  happiness  is  the  Divine  will  —  that  only  by  ex- 
ercising our  faculties  is  this  happiness  obtainable  —  and  that 
it  is  impossible  to  exercise  them  without  freedom?  And  if 
this  freedom  for  the  exercise  of  faculties  is  a  condition  with- 
out which  the  Divine  will  cannot  be  fulfilled,  the  preservation 


98  SPENCER 

of  it  is,  by  our  objector's  own  showing,  a  duty.  Or,  in  other 
words,  it  appears  not  only  that  the  maintenance  of  liberty  of 
action  may  be  a  point  of  conscience,  but  that  it  ought  to  be 
one.  And  thus  we  are  clearly  shown  that  the  claims  to  ig- 
nore the  State  in  religious  and  in  secular  matters  are  in  es- 
sence identical. 

The  other  reason  commonly  assigned  for  nonconformity 
admits  of  similar  treatment.  Besides  resisting  State  dicta- 
tion in  the  abstract,  the  dissenter  resists  it  from  disapproba- 
tion of  the  doctrines  taught.  No  legislative  injunction  will 
make  him  adopt  what  he  considers  an  erroneous  belief;  and, 
bearing  in  mind  his  duty  toward  his  fellow-men,  he  refuses 
to  help  through  the  medium  of  his  purse  in  disseminating  this 
erroneous  belief.  The  position  is  perfectly  intelligible.  But 
it  is  one  M'hich  either  commits  its  adherents  to  civil  noncon- 
formity also,  or  leaves  them  in  a  dilemma.  For  why  do  they 
refuse  to  be  instrumental  in  spreading  error?  Because  er- 
ror is  adverse  to  human  happiness.  And  on  what  ground  is 
any  piece  of  secular  legislation  disapproved.''  For  the  same 
reason  —  because  thought  adverse  to  human  happiness.  How 
then  can  it  be  shown  that  the  State  ought  to  be  resisted  in  the 
one  case  and  not  in  the  other?  Will  any  one  deliberately  as- 
sert that  if  a  government  demands  money  from  us  to  aid  in 
teaching  what  we  think  will  produce  evil,  we  ought  to  refuse 
it,  but  that  if  the  money  is  for  the  purpose  of  doing  what  we 
think  will  produce  evil,  we  ought  not  to  refuse  it?  Yet  such 
is  the  hopeful  proposition  which  those  have  to  maintain  who 
recognize  the  right  to  ignore  the  State  in  religious  matters, 
but  deny  it  in  civil  matters. 

7.  The  substance  of  this  chapter  once  more  reminds  us  of 
the  incongruity  between  a  perfect  law  and  an  imperfect  state. 
The  practicability'  of  the  principle  here  laid  down  varies  di- 
rectly as  social  morality.  In  a  thoroughly  vicious  community 
its  admission  would  be  productive  of  anarchy.  In  a  com- 
pletely virtuous  one  its  admission  will  be  both  innocuous  and 
inevitable.  Progress  toward  a  condition  of  social  health  — 
a  condition,  that  is,  in  which  the  remedial  measures  of  legis- 
lation will  no  longer  be  needed  —  is  progress  toward  a  con- 
dition in  which  those  remedial  measures  will  be  cast  aside,  and 


SPENCER  99 

the  authority  prescribing  them  disregarded.  The  two  changes 
are  of  necessity  coordinate.  That  moral  sense  whose  supre- 
macy will  make  society  harmonious  and  government  unneces- 
sary is  the  same  moral  sense  which  will  then  make  each  man 
assert  his  freedom  even  to  the  extent  of  ignoring  the  State  — 
is  the  same  moral  sense  which,  by  deterring  the  majority  from 
coercing  the  minority,  will  eventually  render  government  im- 
possible. And  as  what  are  merely  different  manifestations 
of  the  same  sentiment  must  bear  a  constant  ratio  to  each  other, 
the  tendency  to  repudiate  governments  will  increase  only  at 
the  same  rate  that  governments  become  needless. 

Let  not  any  be  alarmed,  therefore,  at  the  promulgation  of 
the  foregoing  doctrine.  There  are  many  changes  yet  to  be 
passed  througli  before  it  can  begin  to  exercise  much  influence. 
Probably  a  long  time  will  elapse  before  the  right  to  ignore 
the  State  will  be  generally  admitted,  even  in  theory.  It 
will  be  still  longer  before  it  receives  legislative  recognition. 
And  even  then  there  will  be  plenty  of  checks  upon  the  pre- 
mature exercise  of  it.  A  sharp  experience  will  sufficiently 
instruct  those  who  may  too  soon  abandon  legal  protection. 
Whilst,  in  the  majority  of  men,  there  is  such  a  love  of  tried 
arrangements,  and  so  great  a  dread  of  experiments,  that  they 
will  probably  not  act  upon  this  right  until  long  after  it  is 
safe  to  do  so. 


LEO  TOLSTOY 

(1828-1910) 
APPEAL  TO  SOCIAL  REFORMERS^ 

In  my  "  Appeal  to  the  Working  People  "  I  expressed  the 
opinion  that  if  the  working-men  are  to  free  themselves  from 
oppression  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  themselves  cease 
to  live  as  they  now  live,  struggling  with  their  neighbors  for 
their  personal  welfare,  and  that,  according  to  the  Gospel 
rule,  man  should  "  act  towards  others  as  he  desires  that  others 
should  act  towards  himself." 

The  method  I  had  suggested  called  forth,  as  I  expected, 
one  and  tlie  same  condemnation  from  people  of  the  most 
opposite  views. 

"  It  is  an  Utopia,  unpractical.  To  wait  for  the  liberation 
of  men  who  are  suffering  from  oppression  and  violence  until 
they  all  become  virtuous  would  mean  — -  whilst  recognising 
the  existing  evil  —  to  doom  oneself  to  inaction." 

Therefore  I  would  like  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  why  I 
believe  this  idea  is  not  so  unpractical  as  it  appears,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  deserves  tliat  more  attention  be  directed  to  it 
than  to  all  the  otlier  methods  proposed  by  scientific  men  for 
the  improvement  of  the  social  order.  I  would  like  to  say 
these  words  to  those  who  sincerely  —  not  in  words,  but  in 
deeds  —  desire  to  serve  their  neighbors.  It  is  to  such  peo- 
ple that  I  now  address  myself. 


The  ideals  of  social  life  which  direct  the  activity  of  men 
change,  and  together  with  them  the  order  of  human  life  also 

1  From  a  vohinic  of  Tolstoy's  miscellaneous  writings  edited  by 
Helen  Chrouschoff  Matheson  and  entitled  "Social  Kvils  and  their 
Remedy"  (London:  Metliuen  &  Co.).  It  is  stated  therein  that 
"  the  translation  is  that  used  bv  the   Russian  Free  Press." 

'100 


TOLSTOY  101 

changes.  There  was  a  time  when  the  ideal  of  social  life  was 
complete  animal  freedom^  according  to  which  one  portion  of 
mankind,  as  far  as  they  were  able,  devoured  the  other,  both 
in  the  direct  and  in  the  figurative  sense.  Then  followed  a 
time  when  the  social  ideal  became  the  power  of  one  man,  and 
men  deified  their  rulers,  and  not  only  willingly  but  enthusi- 
astically submitted  to  them  —  Egypt,  Rome:  "  Morituri  te 
salutant."  Next,  people  recognised  as  their  ideal  an  organi- 
sation of  life  in  which  power  was  recognised,  not  for  its  own 
sake,  but  for  the  good  organisation  of  men's  lives.  Attempts 
for  the  realisation  of  such  an  ideal  were  at  one  time  a  uni- 
versal monarchy,  then  a  universal  Church  uniting  various 
States  and  directing  them;  then  came  forth  the  ideal  of  repre- 
sentation, then  of  a  Republic,  with  or  without  universal  suf- 
frage. At  the  present  time  it  is  regarded  that  this  ideal 
can  be  realised  through  an  economic  organisation  wherein 
all  the  instruments  of  labor  will  cease  to  be  private  prop- 
erty, and  will  become  the  property  of  the  whole  nation. 

However  different  be  all  these  ideals,  yet,  to  introduce  them 
into  life,  power  was  always  postulated  —  that  is,  coercive 
power,  which  forces  men  to  obey  established  laws.  The  same 
is  also  postulated  now. 

It  is  supposed  that  the  realisation  of  the  greatest  welfare 
for  all  is  attained  by  certain  people  (according  to  the  Chinese 
teaching,  the  most  virtuous;  according  to  the  European  teach- 
ing, the  anointed,  or  elected  by  the  people)  who,  being  en- 
trusted with  power,  will  establish  and  support  the  organisa- 
tion which  will  secure  the  greatest  possible  safety  of  the 
citizens  against  mutual  encroachments  on  each  other's  labor 
and  on  freedom  of  life.  Not  only  those  who  recognise  the 
existing  State  organisation  as  a  necessary  condition  of  hu- 
man life,  but  also  revolutionists  and  Socialists,  though  they 
regard  the  existing  State  organisation  as  subject  to  altera- 
tion, nevertheless  recognise  power,  that  is,  the  right  and  pos- 
sibility of  some  to  compel  others  to  obey  established  laws, 
as  the  necessary  condition  of  social  order. 

Thus  it  has  been  from  ancient  times,  and  still  continues 
to  be.  But  those  who  were  com^^elled  by  force  to  submit  to 
certain  regulations   did   not   always   regard  these   regulations 


102  TOLSTOY 

as  the  best,  and  therefore  often  revolted  against  those  in 
power,  deposed  them,  and  in  place  of  the  old  order  established 
a  new  one,  which,  according  to  their  opinion,  better  ensured 
the  welfare  of  the  people.  Yet  as  those  possessed  of  power 
always  became  depraved  by  this  possession,  and  therefore  used 
tlieir  power  not  so  much  for  the  common  welfare  as  for  their 
own  personal  interests,  the  new  power  has  always  been  similar 
to  the  old  one,  and  often  still  more  unjust. 

Thus  it  has  been  when  those  who  had  revolted  against  ex- 
isting authority  overcame  it.  On  the  other  hand,  when  vic- 
tory remained  on  the  side  of  the  existing  power,  then  the 
latter,  triumpliant  in  self-protection,  always  increased  the 
means  of  its  defence,  and  became  yet  more  injurious  to  the 
liberty  of  its  citizens. 

Thus  it  has  always  been,  both  in  the  past  and  the  present, 
and  there  is  special  instructiveness  in  the  way  this  has  taken 
place  in  our  European  world  during  the  whole  of  the  19th 
century.  In  the  first  half  of  this  century,  revolutions  had 
been  for  the  most  part  successful;  but  the  new  authorities 
who  replaced  the  old  ones.  Napoleon  I.,  Charles  X.,  Napo- 
leon III.,  did  not  increase  the  liberty  of  the  citizens.  In 
the  second  half,  after  the  year  1848^  all  attempts  at  revo- 
lution were  suppressed  by  the  Governments ;  and  owing  to 
former  revolutions  and  attempted  new  ones,  the  Governments 
entrenched  themselves  in  greater  and  greater  self-defence,  and 
—  thanks  to  the  technical  inventions  of  tlie  last  century, 
which  have  furnislied  men  with  hitherto  unknown  powers 
over  nature  and  over  each  other  —  they  have  increased  their 
authority,  and  towards  the  end  of  last  century  have  devel- 
oped it  to  such  a  degree  that  it  has  become  impossible  for 
the  people  to  struggle  against  it.  The  Governments  have 
not  only  seized  enormous  riches  collected  from  the  people, 
have  not  only  disciplined  artfully  levied  troops,  but  have  also 
grasped  all  the  spiritual  means  of  influencing  the  masses,  the 
direction  of  the  Press  and  of  religious  development,  and, 
above  all,  of  education.  Tlicse  means  have  been  so  organized, 
and  have  become  so  powerful,  that  since  tlie  year  1 8 18  there 
has  been  no  successful  attempt  at  revolution  in  Europe. 


TOLSTOY  103 


II 

This  phenomenon  is  quite  new  and  is  absolutely  peculiar 
to  our  time.  However  powerful  were  Nero,  Khengiz-Khan, 
or  Charles  the  Great,  they  could  not  suppress  risings  on 
the  borders  of  their  domains,  and  still  less  could  they  direct 
the  spiritual  activity  of  their  subjects,  their  education^  scien- 
tific and  moral,  and  their  religious  tendencies ;  whereas  now 
all   these   means   are   in   the  hands   of  the   Governments. 

It  is  not  only  the  Parisian  "  macadam  "  which,  having  re- 
placed the  previous  stone  roadways,  renders  barricades  im- 
possible during  revolutions  in  Paris,  but  the  same  kind  of 
"macadam"  during  the  latter  half  of  the  19th  century  has 
appeared  in  all  the  branches  of  State  government.  The  se- 
cret police,  the  system  of  spies,  bribery  of  the  Press,  rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  telephones,  pliotography,  prisons,  fortifica- 
tions, enormous  riches,  the  education  of  the  younger  genera- 
tions, and  above  all,  the  army,  are  in  the  hands  of  the  Gov- 
ernments. 

All  is  organised  in  such  a  way  that  the  most  incapable  and 
unintelligent  rulers  (from  the  instinctive  feeling  of  self-pres- 
ervation) can  prevent  serious  preparations  for  a  rising,  and 
can  always,  without  any  effort,  suppress  those  weak  attempts 
at  open  revolt  which  from  time  to  time  are  still  undertaken 
by  belated  revolutionists  who,  by  these  attempts,  only  in- 
crease the  power  of  Governments.  At  present  the  only  means 
for  overcoming  Governments  lies  in  this :  that  the  army,  com- 
posed of  the  people,  having  recognised  the  injustice,  cruelty, 
and  injury  of  the  Government  towards  themselves,  should 
cease  to  support  it.  But  in  this  respect  also,  the  Govern- 
ments, knowing  that  their  chief  j^ower  is  in  the  army,  have  so 
organised  its  mobilisation  and  its  discipline  that  no  propa- 
ganda amongst  the  j)eople  can  snatch  the  army  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Government.  No  man,  whatever  his  political 
convictions,  who  is  serving  in  the  army,  and  has  been  sub- 
jected to  that  hypnotic  breaking-in  which  is  called  discipline, 
can,  whilst  in  the  ranks,  avoid  obeying  commands,  just  as 
an   eye   cannot   avoid  winking   when   a   blow   is   aimed   at   it. 


104  TOLSTOY 

Boys  of  the  age  of  twenty,  who  are  enlisted  and  educated 
in  the  false  ecclesiastic  or  materialistic  and  moreover  "  pa- 
triotic "  sjDirit,  cannot  refuse  to  serve,  as  children  who  are 
sent  to  school  cannot  refuse  to  obey.  Having  entered  the 
service,  these  youths,  whatever  their  convictions,  are  —  thanks 
to  artful  discipline,  elaborated  during  centuries  —  inevitably 
transformed  in  one  year  into  submissive  tools  in  the  hands 
of  the  authorities.  If  rare  cases  occur  —  one  out  of  ten 
thousand  —  of  refusals  of  military  service,  this  is  accomplished 
only  by  so-called  "  sectarians  "  who  act  thus  out  of  religious 
convictions  unrecognised  by  the  Governments.  Therefore, 
at  present,  in  the  European  world  —  if  only  the  Governments 
desire  to  retain  their  power,  and  they  cannot  but  desire  this, 
because  the  abolition  of  power  would  involve  the  downfall  of 
the  rulers  —  no  serious  rising  can  be  organised;  and  if  any 
thing  of  the  kind  be  organised  it  will  always  be  suppressed,  and 
will  have  no  other  consequences  than  the  destruction  of  many 
light-minded  individuals  and  the  increase  of  governmental 
power.  Tliis  may  not  be  seen  by  revolutionists  and  Social- 
ists who,  following  out-lived  traditions,  are  carried  away  by 
strife,  which  for  some  has  become  a  definite  profession;  but 
it  cannot  fail  to  be  recognised  by  all  those  who  freely  con- 
sider historical  events. 

This  phenomenon  is  quite  new,  and  therefore  the  activity 
of  those  wlio  desire  to  alter  the  existing  order  should  con- 
form with  this  new  position  of  existing  powers  in  the  Euro- 
pean world. 

Ill 

The  struggle  between  the  State  and  the  people  which  has 
lasted  during  long  ages  at  first  produced  the  substitution  of 
one  power  for  another,  of  this  one  by  yet  a  third,  and  so  on. 
But  in  our  European  world  from  the  middle  of  last  century 
the  power  of  the  existing  Governments,  thanks  to  the  tech- 
nical improvements  of  our  time,  has  been  furnished  with  such 
means  of  defence  that  strife  witli  it  has  become  impossible. 
In  proportion  as  this  power  has  attained  greater  and  greater 
degree  it  has  demonstrated  more  and  more  its  inconsistency: 


TOLSTOY  105 

there  has  become  ever  more  evident  that  inner  contradiction 
which  consists  in  combination  of  the  idea  of  a  beneficent 
power  and  of  violence,  wliich  constitutes  the  essence  of  power. 
It  became  obvious  that  power,  which,  to  be  beneficent,  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  very  best  men,  was  always  in  the  hands 
of  the  worst;  as  the  best  men,  owing  to  the  very  nature  of 
power  —  consisting  in  the  use  of  violence  towards  one's  neigh- 
bor —  could  not  desire  power,  and  therefore  never  obtained 
or  retained  it. 

This  contradiction  is  so  self-evident  that  it  would  seem 
everyone  must  have  always  seen  it.  Yet  such  are  the  pom- 
pous surroundings  of  power,  the  fear  which  it  inspires,  and 
the  inertia  of  tradition,  that  centuries  and  indeed  thousands 
of  years  passed  before  men  understood  their  error.  Only 
in  latter  days  liave  men  begun  to  understand  that  notwith- 
standing the  solemnity  with  which  power  always  drapes  it- 
self its  essence  consists  in  threatening  people  with  the  loss 
of  property,  liberty,  life,  and  in  realising  these  threats;  and 
that,  therefore,  those  who,  like  kings,  emperors,  ministers, 
judges,  and  others,  devote  their  life  to  this  activity  without 
any  object  except  the  desire  to  retain  their  advantageous  posi- 
tion, not  only  are  not  the  best,  but  are  always  the  worst  men, 
and  being  such,  cannot  by  their  power  contribute  to  the  wel- 
fare of  humanity,  but  on  the  contrary  have  always  represented, 
and  still  represent,  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  social 
calamities  of  mankind.  Therefore  power,  which  formerly 
elicited  in  the  people  enthusiasm  and  devotion,  at  present 
calls  forth  amongst  the  greater  and  best  portion  of  man- 
kind not  only  indifference,  but  often  contempt  and  hatred. 
This  more  enlightened  section  of  mankind  now  understands 
that  all  that  pompous  show  with  which  power  surrounds  it- 
self is  naught  else  than  the  red  shirt  and  velvet  trousers  of 
the  executioner,  which  distinguishes  him  from  other  convicts 
because  he  takes  upon  himself  the  most  immoral  and  infamous 
work  —  that  of  executing  people. 

Power,  being  conscious  of  this  attitude  towards  itself  con- 
tinually growing  amongst  the  people,  in  our  days  no  longer 
leans  upon  the  higher  foundations  of  anointed  right,  popular 
election,  or  inborn  virtue  of  the  rulers,  but  rests  solely  upon 


106  TOLSTOY 

coercion.  Resting  thus  merely  on  coercion,  therefore,  it  still 
more  loses  the  confidence  of  the  people,  and  losing  this  con- 
fidence it  is  more  and  more  compelled  to  have  recourse  to 
the  seizure  of  all  the  activities  of  national  life,  and  owing  to 
this  seizure  it  inspires  greater  and  greater  dissatisfaction. 

IV 

Power  has  become  invincible,  and  rests  no  longer  on  the 
higher  national  foundations  of  anointed  right,  election,  or 
representation,  but  on  violence  alone.  At  the  same  time  the 
people  cease  to  believe  in  power  and  to  respect  it,  and  they 
submit  to  it  only  because  they  cannot  do  otherwise. 

Precisely  since  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  from  the 
very  time  when  power  had  simultaneously  become  invincible 
and  lost  its  prestige,  there  begins  to  ajipear  amongst  the 
people  the  teacliing  that  liberty  —  not  that  fantastical  liberty 
which  is  preached  by  the  adherents  of  coercion  when  they 
affirm  that  a  man  who  is  compelled,  under  fear  of  punishment, 
to  fulfill  the  orders  of  other  men,  is  free,  but  that  only  true 
liberty,  which  consists  in  every  man  being  able  to  live  and 
act  according  to  his  own  judgment,  to  pay  or  not  to  pay 
taxes,  to  enter  or  not  to  enter  the  military  service,  to  be 
friendly  or  inimical  to  neighboring  nations  —  that  such  true 
liberty  is  incompatible  with  the  power  of  certain  men  over 
others. 

According  to  this  teaching,  power  is  not,  as  was  formerly 
thought,  something  divine  and  majestic,  neither  is  it  an  in- 
dispensable condition  of  social  life,  but  is  merely  the  result 
of  the  coarse  violence  of  some  men  over  others.  Be  the  power 
in  the  hands  of  Louis  XVL,  or  the  Committee  of  National  De- 
fence, or  the  Directory,  or  the  Consulate,  or  Napoleon,  or 
Louis  XVIIL,  or  the  Sultan,  the  President,  the  chief  Man- 
darin, or  the  first  Minister, —  wheresoever  it  be,  there  will 
exist  the  power  of  certain  men  over  others,  and  there  will 
not  be  freedom,  but  there  will  be  the  oppression  of  one  por- 
tion of  mankind  by  another.  Therefore  power  must  be  abol- 
ished. 

But  how  to  abolish  it,  and  how^  when  it  is  abolished,  to 


TOLSTOY  107 

arrange  things  so  that,  without  the  existence  of  power,  men 
should  not  return  to  the  savage  state  of  coarse  violence  to- 
wards each  other? 

All  anarchists  —  as  the  preachers  of  this  teaching  are 
called  —  quite  uniformly  answer  the  first  question  by  recog- 
nising that  if  this  power  is  to  be  really  abolished  it  must  be 
abolished  not  by  force  but  by  men's  consciousness  of  its  use- 
lessness  and  evil.  To  the  second  question,  as  to  how  society 
should  be  organized  without  power,  anarchists  answer  variously. 

The  Englishman  Godwin,  who  lived  at  the  end  of  the  18th 
and  the  beginning  of  the  19th  centuries,  and  the  Frenchman 
Proudhon,  who  wrote  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  an- 
swer the  first  question  by  saying  that  for  the  abolition  of 
power  the  consciousness  of  men  is  sufficient,  that  the  general 
welfare  (Godwin)  and  justice  (Proudhon)  are  transgressed 
by  power,  and  that  if  the  conviction  were  dissseminated 
amongst  the  people  that  general  welfare  and  justice  can  be 
realised  onlj'  in  the  absence  of  power,  then  power  would  of 
itself  disappear. 

As  to  the  second  question,  by  what  means  will  the  order 
of  a  new  society  be  ensured  without  power,  both  Godwin 
and  Proudhon  answer  that  people  who  are  led  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  general  welfare  (according  to  Godwin)  and  of 
justice  (according  to  Proudhon)  will  instinctively  find  the 
most  universally  rational  and  just  forms  of  life. 

Whereas  other  anarchists,  such  as  Bakounine  and  Kropot- 
kin,  although  they  also  recognise  the  consciousness  in  the 
masses  of  the  harmfulness  of  power  and  its  incompatibility 
with  human  progress,  nevertheless  as  a  means  for  its  aboli- 
tion regard  revolution  as  possible,  and  even  as  necessary,  for 
which  revolution  they  recommend  men  to  prepare.  The 
second  question  they  answer  by  the  assertion  that  as  soon  as 
State  organisation  and  property  shall  be  abolished  men  will 
naturally  combine  in  rational,  free,  and  advantageous  con- 
ditions of  life. 

To  the  question  as  to  the  means  of  abolishing  power,  the 
German  Max  Stirner  and  the  American  Tucker  answer  al- 
most in  the  same  way  as  the  others.     Both  of  them  believe 


108  TOLSTOY 

that  if  men  understood  that  the  personal  interest  of  each  in- 
dividual is  a  perfectly  sufficient  and  legitimate  guide  for  men's 
actions,  and  that  power  only  impedes  the  full  manifestation 
of  this  leading  factor  of  human  life,  then  power  will  perish 
of  itself,  both  owing  to  disobedience  of  it  and  above  all,  as 
Tucker  says,  to  non-participation  in  it.  Their  answer  to  the 
second  question  is,  that  men  freed  from  the  superstition  and 
necessity  of  power  and  merely  following  their  personal  in- 
terests would  of  themselves  combine  into  forms  of  life  most 
adequate   and   advantageous   for   each. 

All  these  teachings  are  perfectly  correct  in  this  —  that  if 
power  is  to  be  abolished,  this  can  be  accomplished  in  nowise 
by  force,  as  power  having  abolished  power  will  remain  power; 
but  that  this  abolition  of  power  can  be  accomplished  only  by 
the  elucidation  in  the  consciousness  of  men  of  the  truth  that 
power  is  useless  and  harmful,  and  that  men  should  neither 
obey  it  nor  participate  in  it.  This  truth  is  incontrovertible: 
power  can  be  abolished  only  by  the  rational  consciousness  of 
men.  But  in  what  should  this  consciousness  consist?  The 
anarchists  believe  that  this  consciousness  can  be  founded  upon 
considerations  about  common  welfare,  justice,  progress,  or 
the  personal  interests  of  men.  But  not  to  mention  that  all 
these  factors  are  not  in  mutual  agreement,  the  very  defini- 
tions of  what  constitutes  general  welfare,  justice,  progress,  or 
personal  interest  are  understood  by  men  in  infinitely  various 
ways.  Therefore  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  people 
who  are  not  agreed  amongst  themselves,  and  who  differently 
understand  the  bases  on  which  thej''  oppose  power,  could 
abolish  power  so  firmly  fixed  and  so  ably  defended.  More- 
over, the  supposition  that  considerations  about  general  wel- 
fare, justice,  or  the  law  of  progress  can  suffice  to  secure  that 
men,  freed  from  coercion,  but  having  no  motive  for  sacrific- 
ing their  personal  welfare  to  the  general  welfare,  should 
combine  in  just  conditions  without  violating  their  mutual  lib- 
erty, is  yet  more  unfounded.  The  Utilitarian  egotistical 
theory  of  Max  Stirner  and  Tucker,  who  affirm  that  by  each 
following  his  own  personal  interest  just  relations  would  be 
introduced   between   all,  is  cot  only   arbitrary,   but   in   com- 


TOLSTOY  109 

plete  contradiction  to  what  in  reality  has  taken  place  and  is 
taking  place. 

So  that,  whilst  correctly  recognising  spiritual  weapons  as 
the  only  means  of  abolishing  power,  the  anarchistic  teach- 
ing, holding  an  irreligious  materialistic  life  conception,  does 
not  possess  this  spiritual  weapon,  and  is  confined  to  conjec- 
tures and  fancies  which  give  the  advocates  of  coercion  the 
possibility  of  denying  its  true  foundations,  owing  to  the  in- 
efficiency of  the  suggested  means  of  realising  this  teaching. 

This  spiritual  weapon  is  simply  the  one  long  ago  known 
to  men,  which  has  always  destroyed  power  and  always  given 
those  who  used  it  complete  and  inalienable  freedom.  This 
weapon  is  but  this:  a  devout  understanding  of  life,  accord- 
ing to  wliich  man  regards  his  earthly  existence  as  only  a 
fragmentary  manifestation  of  the  complete  life,  connecting 
his  own  life  with  infinite  life,  and,  recognising  his  highest  wel- 
fare in  the  fulfillment  of  the  laws  of  this  infinite  life,  re- 
gards the  fulfillment  of  these  laws  as  more  binding  upon  him- 
self than  the  fulfillment  of  any  human  laws  whatsoever. 

Only  such  a  religious  conception,  uniting  all  men  in  the 
same  understanding  of  life,  incompatible  with  subordination 
to  power  and  participation  in  it,  can  truly  destroy  power. 

Only  such  a  life-conception  will  give  men  the  possibility  — 
without  joining  in  violence  —  of  combining  into  rational  and 
just  forms  of  life. 

Strange  to  say,  only  after  men  have  been  brought  by  life 
itself  to  the  conviction  that  existing  power  is  invincible,  and 
in  our  time  cannot  be  overthrown  by  force,  have  they  come 
to  understand  that  ridiculously  self-evident  truth  that  power 
and  all  the  evil  produced  by  it  are  but  results  of  bad  life  in 
men,  and  that  therefore,  for  the  abolition  of  power  and  the 
evil  it  produces,  good  life  on  the  part  of  men  is  necessary. 

Men  are  beginning  to  understand  this.  And  now  they 
have  further  to  understand  that  there  is  only  one  means  for  a 
good  life  amongst  men:  the  profession  and  realisation  of  a 
religious  teaching  natural  and  comprehensible  to  the  majority 
of  mankind. 

Only  by  means  of  professing  and  realising  such  a  religious 


no  TOLSTOY 

teaching  can  men  attain  the  ideal  which  has   now   arisen  in 
their  consciousness,  and  towards  which  they  are  striving. 

All  other  attempts  at  the  abolition  of  power  and  at  organis- 
ing, without  power,  a  good  life  amongst  men  are  only  a  futile 
expenditure  of  effort,  and  do  not  bring  near  the  aim  towards 
which  men  are  striving,  but  only  remove  them  from  it. 


V 

This  is  what  I  wish  to  say  to  you,  sincere  people,  who,  not 
satisfied  with  egotistic  life,  desire  to  give  your  strength  to 
the  service  of  your  brothers.  If  you  participate,  or  desire  to 
participate,  in  governmental  activity,  and  by  this  means  to 
serve  the  people,  then  consider:  What  is  every  Government 
resting  on  power?  And  having  put  this  question  to  yourself, 
you  cannot  but  see  that  there  is  no  Government  which  does 
not  commit,  does  not  prepare  to  commit,  does  not  rest  upon, 
violence,  robbery,  murder. 

An  American  writer,  little  known  —  Thoreau, —  in  his  es- 
say on  why  it  is  men's  duty  to  disobey  the  Government,  re- 
lates how  he  refused  to  pay  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  a  tax  of  one  dollar,  explaining  his  refusal  on  the 
grounds  that  he  does  not  desire  his  dollar  to  participate  in 
the  activity  of  a  Government  which  sanctions  the  slavery  of 
the  negroes.  Can  not,  and  should  not,  the  same  thing  be 
felt  in  relation  to  his  Government,  I  do  not  say  by  a  Rus- 
sian, but  by  a  citizen  of  the  most  progressive  State  —  the 
United  States  of  America,  with  its  action  in  Cuba  and  the 
Philippines,  with  its  relation  to  negroes  and  the  banishment 
of  the  Chinese;  or  of  England,  with  its  opium,  and  Boers;  or 
of  France,  with  its  horrors  of  militarism? 

Therefore,  a  sincere  man,  wishing  to  serve  his  fellow-men, 
if  only  he  has  seriously  realised  what  every  Government  is, 
cannot  participate  in  it  otherwise  than  on  the  strength  of  the 
principle  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 

But  such  an  activity  has  always  been  liarmful  for  those  in 
whose  interests  it  was  undertaken,  as  well  as  for  those  who 
had  recourse  to  it. 

The  thing  is  very  simple.     You  wish,  by  submitting  to  the 


TOLSTOY  111 

Government  and  making  use  of  its  laws,  to  snatch  from  it 
more  liberty  and  rights  for  the  people.  But  the  liberty  and 
the  rights  of  the  people  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  power  of 
the  Government,  and  in  general  of  the  ruling  classes.  The 
more  liberty  and  rights  the  people  will  have,  the  less  power 
and  advantage  will  the  Government  gain  from  them.  Gov- 
ernments know  this,  and,  having  all  the  power  in  their  hands, 
they  readily  allow  all  kinds  of  Liberal  prattle,  and  even  some 
insignificant  Liberal  reforms,  which  justify  its  power,  but  they 
immediately  coercively  arrest  Liberal  inclinations  which 
threaten  not  only  the  advantages  of  the  rulers  but  their  very 
existence.  So  that  all  your  efforts  to  serve  the  people  through 
the  power  of  governmental  administration  or  through  Parlia- 
ments will  only  lead  to  this  —  that  you,  by  your  activity,  will 
increase  the  power  of  the  ruling  classes,  and  will,  according  to 
the  degree  of  your  sincerity,  unconsciously  or  consciously  par- 
ticipate in  this  power.  So  it  is  in  regard  to  those  who  desire 
to  serve  the  people  by  means  of  the  existing  State  organisa- 
tions. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  belong  to  the  category  of  sin- 
cere people  desiring  to  serve  the  nation  by  revolutionary, 
Socialistic  activity,  then  (not  to  speak  of  the  insufficiency  of 
aim  involved  in  that  material  welfare  of  men  towards  which 
you  are  striving,  which  never  satisfied  anyone)  consider  the 
means  which  you  possess  for  its  attainment.  These  means 
are,  in  the  first  place  and  above  all,  immoral,  containing 
falsehood,  deception,  violence,  murder;  secondly,  these  means 
can  in  no  case  attain  their  end.  The  strength  and  caution 
of  Governments  defending  their  existence  are  in  our  time  so 
great  that  not  only  can  no  ruse,  deception,  or  harsh  action 
overthrow  them  —  they  cannot  even  shake  them.  All  revo- 
lutionary attempts  only  furnish  new  justification  for  the  vio- 
lence  of   Governments,   and   increase   their   power. 

But  even  if  we  admit  the  impossible  —  that  a  revolution 
in  our  time  could  be  crowned  with  success  —  then,  in  the 
first  place,  why  should  we  expect  that,  contrary  to  all  which 
has  ever  taken  place,  the  power  wliich  has  overturned  an- 
other power  can  increase  the  liberty  of  men  and  become  more 
beneficent    than    the    one    it   has    overthrown.''     Secondly,    if 


112  TOLSTOY 

the  conjecture,  contrary  to  common  sense  and  experience, 
were  possible,  that  power  having  abolished  power  could  give 
people  the  freedom  necessary  to  establish  those  conditions  of 
life  which  they  regard  as  most  advantageous  for  them- 
selves, then  there  would  be  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose 
that  people  living  an  egotistical  life  could  establish  amongst 
themselves  better  conditions  than  the  previous  ones. 

Let  the  Queen  of  the  Dahomeys  establish  the  most  Liberal 
constitution,  and  let  her  even  realise  that  nationalisation  of 
the  instruments  of  labor  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Social- 
ists, would  save  people  from  all  their  calamities  —  it  would 
still  be  necessary  for  someone  to  have  power  in  order  that 
the  constitution  should  work  and  the  instruments  of  labor 
should  not  be  seized  into  private  hands.  But  as  long  as  these 
people  are  Dahomeys,  with  their  life-conception,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  —  although  in  another  form  —  the  violence  of  a 
certain  portion  of  the  Dahomeys  over  the  others  will  be  the 
same  as  without  a  constitution  and  without  the  nationalisation 
of  the  instruments  of  labor.  Before  realising  the  Socialistic 
organisation  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  Dahomeys  to  lose 
th.eir  taste  for  bloody  tyranny.  Just  the  same  is  necessary 
for  Europeans  also. 

In  order  that  men  may  live  a  common  life  without  oppres- 
sing each  other,  there  is  necessary,  not  an  organisation  sup- 
ported by  force,  but  a  moral  state  in  accordance  with,  which 
people,  from  their  inner  convictions  and  not  by  coercion, 
should  act  towards  others  as  they  desire  that  others  should 
act  towards  them.  Such  people  do  exist.  They  exist  in  re- 
ligious Christian  communities  in  America,  in  Russia,  in  Can- 
ada. Such  people  do  indeed,  without  laws  supported  by  force, 
live  the  communal  life  without  oppressing  eacli  other. 

Thus  the  rational  activity  proper  to  our  time  for  men  of 
our  Christian  society  is  only  one:  the  profession  and  preach- 
ing by  word  and  deed  of  the  last  and  highest  religious  teach- 
ing known  to  us,  of  the  Christian  teaching;  not  of  that  Chris- 
tian teaching  which,  whilst  submitting  to  the  existing  order 
of  life,  demands  of  men  only  the  fulfillment  of  external  ritual, 
or  is  satisfied  with  faith  in  and  the  prcacliing  of  salvation 
through    redemption,    but    of    that   vital    Christianity    the   in- 


TOLSTOY  lia 

evitable  condition  of  which  is,  not  only  non-participation  in 
the  action  of  tlie  Government,  but  disobedience  to  its  de- 
mands, since  these  demands  —  from  taxes  and  custom-houses 
to  law  courts  and  armies  —  are  all  opposed  to  this  true 
Christianity.  If  this  be  so,  then  it  is  evident  that  it  is  not  to 
the  establishment  of  new  forms  that  the  activity  of  men  de- 
sirous of  serving  their  neighbor  should  be  directed,  but  to  the 
alteration  and  perfecting  of  their  own  characters  and  those 
of  other  people. 

Those  who  act  in  the  other  way  generally  think  that  the 
forms  of  life  and  tlie  character  of  life-conception  of  men  may 
simultaneously  improve.  But  thinking  thus,  they  make  the 
usual  mistake  of  taking  the  result  for  the  cause  and  the  cause 
for  the  result  or  for  an  accompanying  condition. 

The  alteration  of  the  character  and  life-conception  of  men 
inevitably  brings  with  it  the  alteration  of  those  forms  in  which 
men  had  lived,  whereas  the  alteration  of  the  forms  of  life  not 
only  does  not  contribute  to  the  alteration  of  the  character  and 
life-conception  of  men,  but,  more  than  anything  else,  ob- 
structs this  alteration  by  directing  the  attention  and  activity 
of  men  into  a  false  channel.  To  alter  the  forms  of  life, 
hoping  thereby  to  alter  the  character  and  life-conception  of 
men,  is  like  altering  in  various  ways  the  position  of  wet  wood 
in  a  stove,  believing  that  there  can  be  such  a  position  of  wet 
fuel  as  will  cause  it  to  catch  fire.  Only  dry  wood  will  take 
fire  independently  of  the  position  in  which  it  is  placed. 

This  error  is  so  obvious  that  people  could  not  submit  to  it 
if  there  were  not  a  reason  which  rendered  them  liable  to  it. 
This  reason  consists  in  this:  that  the  alteration  of  the  char- 
acter of  men  must  begin  in  themselves,  and  demands  much 
struggle  and  labor ;  whereas  the  alteration  of  the  forms  of  the 
life  of  others  is  attained  easily  without  inner  effort  over  one- 
self, and  has  the  appearance  of  a  very  important  and  far- 
reaching  activity. 

It  is  against  this  error,  the  source  of  the  greatest  evil,  that 
I  warn  you,  men  sincerely  desirous  of  serving  your  neighbor 
by  your  lives. 


114  TOLSTOY 


VI 


"  But  we  cannot  live  quietly  occupying  ourselves  with  the 
profession  and  teaching  of  Christianity  when  we  see  around 
us  suffering  people.  We  wish  to  serve  them  actively.  For 
this  we  are  ready  to  surrender  our  labor,  even  our  lives," 
say  people  with  more  or  less  sincere  indignation. 

How  do  you  know,  I  would  answer  these  people,  that  you 
are  called  to  serve  men  precisely  by  that  method  which  ap- 
pears to  you  the  most  useful  and  practical.^  What  you  say 
only  shows  that  3'ou  have  already  decided  that  we  cannot  serve 
mankind  by  a  Christian  life,  and  that  true  service  lies  only 
in  political  activity,  which  attracts  you. 

All  politicians  think  likewise,  and  tliey  are  all  in  opposi- 
tion to  each  other,  and  therefore  certainly  cannot  all  be  right. 
It  would  be  very  well  if  everyone  could  serve  men  as  he 
pleased,  but  such  is  not  the  case,  and  there  exists  only  one 
means  of  serving  men  and  improving  their  condition.  This 
sole  means  consists  in  the  profession  and  realisation  of  a 
teaching  from  which  flows  the  inner  work  of  perfecting  one- 
self. Tlie  self-perfecting  of  a  true  Christian,  always  living 
naturally  amongst  men  and  not  avoiding  them,  consists  in 
the  establishment  of  better  and  even  more  loving  relations 
between  himself  and  other  men.  The  establishment  of  lov- 
ing relations  between  men  cannot  but  improve  their  general 
conditions,  altliough  the  form  of  this  improvement  remains 
unknown  to  man. 

It  is  true  that  in  serving  through  governmental  activity, 
parliamentary  or  revolutionary,  we  can  determine  beforehand 
the  results  we  wish  to  attain,  and  at  the  same  time  profit 
by  all  the  advantages  of  a  pleasant,  luxurious  life,  and  ob- 
tain a  brilliant  position,  tlie  approval  of  men,  and  great  fame. 
If  those  who  participate  in  such  activity  have  indeed  some- 
times to  suffer,  it  is  such  a  possibility  of  suffering  as  in  every 
strife  is  redeemed  by  the  possibility  of  success.  In  the  mili- 
tary activity,  suffering  and  even  death  are  still  more  possible, 
and  yet  only  the  least  moral  and  the  egotistic  choose  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  activity,  in  the  first  place, 
does  not  show  us  the  results  wliich  it  attains;  and  secondly. 


TOLSTOY  116 

this  activity  demands  tlie  renunciation  of  external  success, 
and  not  only  does  not  afford  a  brilliant  position  and  fame, 
but  brings  men  to  the  lowest  position  from  the  social  point 
of  view  —  subjects  them  not  only  to  contempt  and  condemna- 
tion, but  to  the  most  cruel  sufferings  and  death. 

Thus,  in  our  time  of  universal  conscription,  religious  activity 
compels  every  man  who  is  called  to  the  service  of  murder 
to  bear  all  those  punishments  with  which  the  Government 
punishes  for  refusal  of  military  service.  Therefore,  re- 
ligious activity  is  difficult,  but  it  alone  gives  man  the  con- 
sciousness of  true  freedom,  and  the  assurance  that  he  is  do- 
ing that  which  he  should  do. 

Consequently,  this  activity  alone  is  truly  fruitful,  attain- 
ing not  only  its  highest  object,  but  also,  incidentally  and  in 
the  most  natural  and  simple  way,  those  results  towards  which 
social   reformers   strive  in  such   artificial  ways. 

Thus  there  is  only  one  means  of  serving  men,  which  con- 
sists in  oneself  living  a  good  life.  And  not  only  is  this  means 
not  visionary  —  as  it  is  regarded  by  those  to  whom  it  is  not 
advantageous, —  but  all  other  means  are  visionary,  by  which 
the  leaders  of  the  masses  allure  them  into  a  false  way,  dis- 
tracting them  from  that  method  which  alone  is  true. 

VII 

"  But  if  this  be  so,  when  will  it  come  to  pass?  "  say  those 
who  wish  to  see  the  realisation  of  this  ideal  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  much  better  if  one  could  do  this 
very  quickly,  immediately. 

It  would  be  very  well  if  one  could  quickly,  immediately, 
grow  a  forest.  But  one  cannot  do  this ;  one  must  wait  till 
the  seeds  shoot,  then  the  leaves,  then  the  branches,  and  then 
the  trees  will  grow  up. 

One  can  stick  branches  into  the  ground,  and  for  a  short 
time  they  will  resemble  a  wood,  but  it  will  be  only  a  re- 
semblance. The  same  with  a  rapid  establishment  of  good 
social  order  amongst  men.  One  can  arrange  a  resemblance  of 
good    order,    as    do    the    Governments,    but    these    imitations 


116  TOLSTOY 

only  remove  the  possibility  of  true  order.  They  remove  it, 
firstly,  by  cheating  men,  showing  them  the  image  of  good 
order  where  it  does  not  exist;  and,  secondly,  because  these 
imitations  of  order  are  attained  only  by  power,  and  power 
depraves  men,  rulers  as  well  as  ruled,  and  therefore  makes 
true   order  less   possible. 

Therefore,  attempts  at  a  rapid  realisation  of  the  ideal  not 
only  do  not  contribute  to  its  actual  realisation,  but  more  than 
anything  impede  it. 

So  that  the  solution  of  the  question  whether  the  ideal  of 
mankind  —  a  well-organised  society  without  violence  —  will 
be  organised  soon,  or  not  soon,  depends  upon  wlietlier  the 
rulers  of  the  masses  who  sincerely  wish  the  people  good  will 
soon  understand  tliat  nothing  removes  men  so  much  from  the 
realisation  of  their  ideal  as  that  which  tliey  are  now  doing 
—  namely,  continuing  to  maintain  old  superstitions,  or  deny- 
ing all  religions,  and  directing  the  people's  activity  to  the 
service  of  the  Government,  of  revolution,  of  Socialism.  If 
those  men  wlio  sincerely  wish  to  serve  their  neighbor  were 
only  to  understand  all  the  fruitlessness  of  those  means  of 
organising  tlie  welfare  of  men  proposed  by  the  supporters  of 
the  State,  and  by  revolutionists  —  if  only  they  were  to  under- 
stand that  tlie  one  means  by  which  men  can  be  liberated  from 
their  sufferings  consists  in  men  themselves  ceasing  to  live 
an  egotistic  heathen  life,  and  beginning  to  live  a  universal 
Christian  one,  not  recognising,  as  they  do  now,  the  possibility 
and  the  legality  of  using  violence  over  one's  neighbors,  and 
participating  in  it  for  one's  personal  aims;  but  if,  on  the 
contrary,  they  were  to  follow  in  life  the  fundamental  and 
Iiighest  law  of  acting  towards  others  as  one  wishes  others 
to  act  towards  oneself  —  then  very  quickly  would  be  over- 
thrown those  irrational  and  cruel  forms  of  life  in  which 
we  now  live,  and  new  ones  would  develop  corresponding 
to   the   new   consciousness   of  men. 

Think  only  what  enormous  and  splendid  mental  powers  are 
now  spent  in  the  service  of  the  State  —  which  has  outgrown 
its  time  —  and  in  its  defence  from  revolution ;  how  much 
yontliful  and  enthusiastic  effort  is  spent  on  attempts  at  revo- 
lution, on  an  impossible  struggle  with  the  State;   how  much 


TOLSTOY  117 

is  spent  on  unrealisable  Socialistic  dreamings.  All  this  is  not 
only  delaying  but  rendering  impossible  the  realisation  of  the 
welfare  towards  which  all  men  are  striving.  How  would  it 
be  if  all  those  who  are  spending  their  powers  so  fruitlessly^ 
and  often  with  harm  to  their  neighbors,  were  to  direct  them 
all  to  that  which  alone  affords  the  possibility  of  good  social 
life  —  to  their  inner  self-perfection? 

How  many  times  would  one  be  able  to  build  a  new  house, 
out  of  new  solid  material,  if  all  those  eff"orts  which  have  been 
and  are  now  being  spent  on  propping  up  the  old  house 
were  used  resolutely  and  conscientiously  for  the  preparation 
of  the  material  for  a  new  house  and  the  building  thereof, 
which,  although  obviously  it  could  not  at  first  be  as  luxurious 
and  convenient  for  some  chosen  ones  as  was  the  old  one, 
would  undoubtedly  be  more  stable,  and  would  aff"ord  the 
complete  possibility  for  those  improvements  which  are  neces- 
sary, not  for  the  chosen  only,  but  also  for  all  men. 

So  that  all  I  have  here  said  amounts  to  the  simple,  gen- 
erally comprehensible,  and  irrefutable  truth:  that  in  order 
that  good  life  should  exist  amongst  men  it  is  necessary  that 
men  should  be  good. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  influencing  men  towards  a  good 
life:  namely,  to  live  a  good  life  oneself.  Therefore  the  ac- 
tivity of  those  who  desire  to  contribute  to  the  establishment 
of  good  life  amongst  men  can  and  should  only  consist  in 
eff'orts  towards  inner  perfection  - —  in  the  fulfilment  of  that 
which  is  expressed  in  the  Gospel  by  the  words:  "Be  ye 
perfect  even  as  your  Father  in  Heaven." 


OSCAR  WILDE 

(1856-1900) 

THE  SOUL  OF  MAN  UNDER  SOCIALISM  ^ 

Socialism,  Communism,  or  whatever  one  chooses  to  call  it,  by 
converting  private  property  into  public  wealth,  and  substitut- 
ing co-operation  for  competition,  will  restore  society  to  its 
proper  condition  of  a  thoroughly  healthy  organism,  and  in- 
sure the  material  well-being  of  each  member  of  the  com- 
munity. It  will,  in  fact,  give  Life  its  proper  basis  and  its 
proper  environment.  But,  for  the  full  development  of  Life 
to  its  highest  mode  of  perfection,  something  more  is  needed. 
What  is  needed  is  Individualism.  If  the  Socialism  is  Authori- 
tarian; if  there  are  Governments  armed  with  economic  power 
as  they  are  now  with  political  power;  if,  in  a  word,  we  are 
to  have  Industrial  Tyrannies,  then  the  last  state  of  man  will 
be  worse  than  the  first.  At  present,  in  consequence  of  the 
existence  of  private  property,  a  great  many  people  are 
enabled  to  develop  a  certain  very  limited  amount  of  Individual- 
ism. They  are  either  under  no  necessity  to  work  for  their 
living,  or  are  enabled  to  choose  the  sphere  of  activity  that  is 
really  congenial  to  them,  and  gives  them  pleasure.  These 
are  the  poets,  the  philosophers,  the  men  of  science,  the  men 
of  culture  —  in  a  word,  the  real  men,  the  men  who  have 
realised  themselves,  and  in  whom  all  Humanity  gains  a  partial 
realisation.  Upon  the  other  hand,  there  are  a  great  many 
people  who,  having  no  private  property  of  their  own,  and 
being  always  on  the  brink  of  sheer  starvation,  are  compelled 
to  do  the  work  of  beasts  of  burden,  to  do  work  that  is  quite 
uncongenial   to   them,   and   to   which   they   are   forced   by   the 

1  First  published  in  1891.  A  few  pages  at  the  beginning,  and  a 
rather  lengthy  section  toward  the  middle  of  the  essay  describing  the 
baleful  effects  of  the  Britisb  public's  attempt  to  exercise  authority 
over  art  and  artists,  have  been  omitted  here. 

118 


WILDE  119 

peremptory,  unreasonable,  degrading  Tyranny  of  want. 
These  are  the  poor;  and  amongst  them  there  is  no  grace  of 
manner,  or  charm  of  speech,  or  civilisation,  or  culture,  or 
refinement  in  pleasures,  or  joy  of  life.  From  their  collective 
force  Humanity  gains  much  in  material  prosperity.  But  it  is 
only  the  material  result  that  it  gains,  and  the  man  who  is 
])Oor  is  in  himself  absolutely  of  no  importance.  He  is  merely 
the  infinitesimal  atom  of  a  force  that,  so  far  from  regarding 
him,  crushes  him:  indeed,  prefers  him  crushed,  as  in  that 
case  he  is  far  more  obedient. 

Of  course,  it  might  be  said  that  the  Individualism  generated 
under  conditions  of  private  property  is  not  always,  or  even 
as  a  rule,  of  a  fine  or  wonderful  type,  and  that  the  poor, 
if  they  have  not  culture  and  charm,  have  still  many  virtues. 
Both  these  statements  would  be  quite  true.  The  possession 
of  private  property  is  very  often  extremely  demoralising, 
and  that  is,  of  course,  one  of  the  reasons  why  Socialism 
wants  to  get  rid  of  the  institution.  In  fact,  property  is  really 
a  nuisance.  Some  years  ago  people  went  about  the  country 
saying  that  property  has  duties.  They  said  it  so  often  and 
so  tediously  that,  at  last,  the  Church  has  begun  to  say  it. 
One  hears  it  now  from  every  pulpit.  It  is  perfectly  true. 
Property  not  merely  has  duties,  but  has  so  many  duties  that 
its  possession  to  any  large  extent  is  a  bore.  It  involves 
endless  claims  upon  one,  endless  attention  to  business,  end- 
less bother.  If  property  had  simply  pleasures,  we  could  stand 
it;  but  its  duties  make  it  unbearable.  In  the  interest  of  the 
rich  we  must  get  rid  of  it.  The  virtues  of  the  poor  may  be 
readily  admitted,  and  are  much  to  be  regretted.  We  are 
often  told  that  the  poor  are  grateful  for  charity.  Some  of 
them  are,  no  doubt,  but  the  best  amongst  the  poor  are  never 
grateful.  They  are  ungrateful,  discontented,  disobedient, 
and  rebellious.  They  are  quite  right  to  be  so.  Charity  they 
feel  to  be  a  ridiculously  inadequate  mode  of  partial  restitu- 
tion, or  a  sentimental  dole,  usually  accompanied  by  some  im- 
pertinent attempt  on  the  part  of  the  sentimentalist  to 
tyrannise  over  their  private  lives.  Wliy  should  they  be  grate- 
ful for  the  crumbs  that  fall  from  the  rich  man's  table? 
They   should  be   seated  at  the   board,   and   are  beginning  to 


120  WILDE 

know  it.  As  for  being  discontened,  a  man  who  would  not  be 
discontented  with  such  surroundings  and  such  a  low  mode 
of  life  would  be  a  perfect  brute.  Disobedience,  in  the  eyes 
of  any  one  who  has  read  history,  is  man's  original  virtue. 
It  is  through  disobedience  that  progress  has  been  made, 
through  disobedience  and  through  rebellion.  Sometimes  the 
poor  are  praised  for  being  thrifty.  But  to  recommend  thrift 
to  the  poor  is  both  grotesque  and  insulting.  It  is  like  advis- 
ing a  man  who  is  starving  to  eat  less.  For  a  town  or  country 
laborer  to  practise  thrift  would  be  absolutely  immoral.  Man 
should  not  be  ready  to  show  that  he  can  live  like  a  badly- 
fed  animal.  He  should  decline  to  live  like  that,  and  should 
either  steal  or  go  on  the  rates,  which  is  considered  by  many 
to  be  a  form  of  stealing.  As  for  begging,  it  is  safer  to  beg 
than  to  take,  but  it  is  finer  to  take  than  to  beg.  No:  a 
poor  man  who  is  ungrateful,  unthrifty,  discontented,  and  re- 
bellious, is  probably  a  real  personality,  and  has  much  in  him. 
He  is  at  any  rate  a  healthy  protest.  As  for  the  virtuous 
poor,  one  can  pity  them,  of  course,  but  one  cannot  possibly 
admire  tliem.  They  have  made  private  terms  with  the  enemy, 
and  sold  their  birthright  for  very  bad  pottage.  They  must 
also  be  extraordinarily  stupid.  I  can  quite  understand  a  man 
accepting  laws  that  protect  private  property,  and  admit  of  its 
accumulation,  as  long  as  he  himself  is  able  under  those  con- 
ditions to  realize  some  form  of  beautiful  and  intellectual  life. 
But  it  is  almost  incredible  to  me  how  a  man  whose  life  is 
marred  and  made  hideous  by  such  laws  can  possibly  acquiesce 
in  their  continuance. 

However,  tlie  explanation  is  not  really  difficult  to  find.  It 
is  simply  this.  Misery  and  poverty  are  so  absolutely  degrad- 
ing, and  exercise  such  a  paralysing  effect  over  the  nature 
of  men,  that  no  class  is  ever  really  conscious  of  its  own  suffer- 
ing. They  have  to  be  told  of  it  by  other  people,  and  they 
often  entirely  disbelieve  them.  What  is  said  by  great  em- 
ployers of  labor  against  agitators  is  unquestionably  true. 
Agitators  are  a  set  of  interfering,  meddling  people,  who 
come  down  to  some  perfectly  contented  class  of  the  com- 
munity, and  sow  the  seeds  of  discontent  amongst  them.  That 
is    the    reason    why    agitators    are    so    absolutely    necessary. 


WILDE  121 

Without  them,  in  our  incomplete  state,  there  would  be  no  ad- 
vance towards  civilisation.  Slavery  was  put  down  in  America, 
not  in  consequence  of  any  action  on  the  part  of  the  slaves, 
or  even  any  express  desire  on  their  part  tliat  they  should  be 
free.  It  was  put  down  entirely  through  the  grossly  illegal 
conduct  of  certain  agitators  in  Boston  and  elsewhere,  who 
were  rot  slaves  themselves,  nor  owners  of  slaves,  nor  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  question  really.  It  was,  undoubtedly, 
the  Abolitionists  who  set  the  torch  alight,  who  began  the  whole 
thing.  And  it  is  curious  to  note  that  from  the  slaves  them- 
selves they  received,  not  merely  very  little  assistance,  but 
hardly  any  sympathy  even;  and  wlien  at  the  close  of  the  war 
the  slaves  found  themselves  free,  found  themselves  indeed  so 
absolutely  free  that  they  were  free  to  starve,  many  of  them 
bitterly  regretted  tlie  new  state  of  things.  To  the  thinker, 
the  most  tragic  fact  in  the  whole  of  the  French  Revolution 
is  not  that  Marie  Antoinette  was  killed  for  being  a  queen, 
but  that  the  starved  peasant  of  the  Vendee  voluntarily  went 
out  to  die  for  the  hideous  cause  of  feudalism. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  no  Authoritarian  Socialism  will  do. 
For  while  under  the  present  system  a  very  large  number 
of  people  can  lead  lives  of  a  certain  amount  of  freedom  and 
expression  and  happiness,  under  an  industrial-barrack  system, 
or  a  system  of  economic  tyranny,  nobody  would  be  able  to 
have  any  such  freedom  at  all.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  por- 
tion of  our  community  should  be  practically  in  slavery,  but  to 
propose  to  solve  the  problem  by  enslaving  the  entire  com- 
munity is  childish.  Every  man  must  be  left  quite  free  to 
choose  his  own  work.  No  form  of  compulsion  must  be  exer- 
cised over  him.  If  there  is,  his  work  will  not  be  good  for 
him,  will  not  be  good  in  itself,  and  will  not  be  good  for  others. 
And  by  work  I  simply  mean  activity  of  any  kind. 

I  liardly  think  that  any  Socialist,  nowadays,  would  seriously 
propose  that  an  inspector  should  call  every  morning  at  each 
house  to  see  that  each  citizen  rose  up  and  did  manual  labor 
for  eight  hours.  Humanity  has  got  beyond  that  stage,  and 
reserves  such  a  form  of  life  for  the  people  whom,  in  a  very 
arbitrary  manner,  it  chooses  to  call  criminals.  But  I  con- 
fess  that   many   of    the    socialistic    views    that    I    have    come 


122  WILDE 

across  seem  to  me  to  be  tainted  with  ideas  of  authority,  if 
not  of  actual  compulsion.  Of  course,  authority  and  compul- 
sion are  out  of  the  question.  All  association  must  be  quite 
voluntary.  It  is  only  in  voluntary  associations  that  men  are 
fine. 

But  it  may  be  asked  how  Individualism,  which  is  now  more 
or  less  dependent  on  the  existence  of  private  property  for 
its  development,  will  benefit  by  the  abolition  of  such  private 
property.  The  answer  is  very  simple.  It  is  true  that,  unde"^ 
existing  conditions,  a  few  men  who  have  had  private  means 
of  their  own,  such  as  Byron,  Shelley,  Browning,  Victor  Hugo, 
Baudelaire,  and  others,  have  been  able  to  realise  their  person- 
ality more  or  less  completely.  Not  one  of  these  men  ever 
did  a  single  day's  work  for  hire.  They  were  relieved  from 
poverty.  They  had  an  immense  advantage.  The  question  is 
whether  it  would  be  for  the  good  of  Individualism  that  such 
an  advantage  should  be  taken  away.  Let  us  suppose  that 
it  is  taken  away.  Wliat  happens  then  to  Individualism? 
How  will  it  benefit? 

It  will  benefit  in  this  way.  Under  the  new  conditions  In- 
dividualism will  be  far  freer,  far  finer,  and  far  more  intensified 
than  it  is  now.  I  am  not  talking  of  the  great  imaginatively- 
realised  Individualism  of  such  poets  as  I  have  mentioned, 
but  of  the  great  actual  Individualism  latent  and  potential  in 
mankind  generally.  For  the  recognition  of  private  property 
has  really  harmed  Individualism,  and  obscured  it,  bj'  confus- 
ing a  man  with  what  he  possesses.  It  has  led  Individualism 
entirely  astray.  It  has  made  gain,  not  growth,  its  aim.  So 
that  man  thought  that  the  important  thing  was  to  have,  and 
did  not  know  that  the  important  thing  is  to  be.  The  true 
perfection  of  man  lies,  not  in  what  man  has,  but  in  what  man 
is.  Private  property  has  crushed  true  Individualism,  and  set 
up  an  Individualism  that  is  false.  It  has  debarred  one  part 
of  the  community  from  being  individual  by  starving  them. 
It  has  debarred  the  other  part  of  the  community  from  being 
individual  by  putting  them  on  the  wrong  road,  and  encumber- 
ing tliem.  Indeed,  so  completely  has  man's  personality  been 
absorbed  by  his  possessions  that  the  English  law  has  always 
treated  offences  against  a  man's  property  with  far  more  sever- 


WILDE  123 

ity  than  offences  against  his  person,  and  property  is  still  the 
test  of  complete  citizenship.  The  industry  necessary  for  the 
making  of  money  is  also  very  demor.ilising.  In  a  community 
like  ours,  where  property  confers  immense  distinction,  social 
position,  honor,  respect,  titles,  and  other  pleasant  things  of 
the  kind,  man,  being  naturally  ambitious,  makes  it  his  aim 
to  accumulate  this  property,  and  goes  on  wearily  and 
tediously  accumulating  it  long  after  he  has  got  far  more 
than  he  wants,  or  can  use,  or  enjoy,  or  perhaps  even  know 
of.  Man  will  kill  himself  by  overwork  in  order  to  secure 
property,  and  really,  considering  the  enormous  advantages 
that  property  brings,  one  is  hardly  surprised.  One's  regret 
is  that  society  should  be  constructed  on  such  a  basis  that  man 
has  been  forced  into  a  groove  in  which  he  cannot  freely 
develop  what  is  wonderful,  and  fascinating,  and  delight- 
ful in  him  —  in  which,  in  fact,  he  misses  the  true  pleasure 
and  joy  of  living.  He  is  also,  under  existing  conditions, 
very  insecure.  An  enormously  wealthy  merchant  may  be  — 
often  is  —  at  every  moment  of  his  life  at  the  mercy  of  things 
that  are  not  under  his  control.  If  the  wind  blows  an  extra 
point  or  so,  or  the  weather  suddenly  changes,  or  some  trivial 
thing  happens,  his  ship  may  go  down,  his  speculations  may 
go  wrong,  and  he  finds  himself  a  poor  man,  with  his  social 
position  quite  gone.  Now,  nothing  should  be  able  to  harm 
a  man  except  himself.  Nothing  should  be  able  to  rob  a  man 
at  all.  What  a  man  really  has,  is  what  is  in  him.  What  is 
outside  of  him  should  be  a  matter  of  no  importance. 

With  the  abolition  of  private  property,  then,  we  shall  have 
true,  beautiful,  healthy  Individualism.  Nobody  will  waste 
his  life  in  accumulating  things,  and  the  symbols  for  things. 
One  will  live.  To  live  is  the  rarest  thing  in  the  world. 
Most  people  exist,  that  is  all. 

It  is  a  question  whether  we  have  ever  seen  the  full  ex- 
pression of  a  personality,  except  on  the  imaginative  plane  of 
art.  In  action,  we  never  have.  Caesar,  says  Mommsen,  was 
the  complete  and  perfect  man.  But  how  tragically  insecure 
was  Caesar !  Wherever  there  is  a  man  who  exercises  authority, 
there  is  a  man  who  resists  authorit3^  Cgesar  was  very  per- 
fect,  but  his   perfection  travelled  by  too   dangerous   a  road. 


124  WILDE 

Marcus  Aurelius  was  the  perfect  man,  says  Renan.  Yes ; 
the  great  emperor  was  a  perfect  man.  But  how  intolerable 
were  the  endless  claims  upon  him !  He  staggered  under  the 
burden  of  the  empire.  He  was  conscious  how  inadequate  one 
man  was  to  bear  the  weight  of  that  Titan  and  too  vast  orb. 
What  I  mean  by  a  perfect  man  is  one  who  develops  under 
perfect  conditions;  one  who  is  not  wounded,  or  worried,  or 
maimed,  or  in  danger.  Most  personalities  have  been  obliged 
to  be  rebels.  Half  their  strength  has  been  wasted  in  friction. 
Byron's  personality,  for  instance,  was  terribly  wasted  in  its 
battle  with  the  stupidity  and  hypocrisy  and  Philistinism  of 
the  English.  Such  battles  do  not  always  intensify  strength; 
they  often  exaggerate  weakness.  Byron  was  never  able  to 
give  us  what  he  might  have  given  us.  Shelley  escaped  better. 
I>ike  Byron,  he  got  out  of  England  as  soon  as  possible.  But 
he  was  not  so  well  known.  If  the  English  had  realised  what 
a  great  poet  he  really  was,  they  would  have  fallen  on  him 
with  tooth  and  nail,  and  made  his  life  as  unbearable  to  him 
as  they  possibly  could.  But  he  was  not  a  remarkable  figure 
in  society,  and  consequently  he  escaped,  to  a  certain  degree. 
Still,  even  in  Shelley  the  note  of  rebellion  is  sometimes  too 
strong.  The  note  of  the  perfect  personality  is  not  rebellion, 
but  peace. 

It  will  be  a  marvellous  thing  —  the  true  personality  of  man 
—  when  we  see  it.  It  will  grow  naturally  and  simply,  flower- 
like, or  as  a  tree  grows.  It  will  not  be  at  discord.  It  will 
never  argue  or  dispute.  It  will  not  prove  things.  It  will 
know  everything.  And  yet  it  will  not  busy  itself  about 
knowledge.  It  will  have  wisdom.  Its  value  will  not  be 
measured  by  material  things.  It  will  have  nothing.  And 
yet  it  will  have  everything,  and  whatever  one  takes  from  it, 
it  will  still  have,  so  rich  will  it  be.  It  will  not  be  always 
meddling  with  others,  or  asking  them  to  be  like  itself.  It 
will  love  them  because  they  will  be  different.  And  yet  while 
it  will  not  meddle  with  others,  it  will  help  all,  as  a  beautiful 
thing  helps  us,  by  being  what  it  is.  The  personality  of  man 
will  be  very  wonderful.  It  will  be  as  wonderful  as  the  per- 
sonality of  a  child. 

In   its  development  it  will  be   assisted  by   Christianity,  if 


WILDE  125 

men  desire  that;  but  if  men  do  not  desire  that,  it  will  develo]) 
none  the  less  surely.  For  it  will  not  worry  itself  about  tlie 
past,  nor  care  whether  things  hapi)cned  or  did  not  happen. 
Nor  will  it  admit  any  laws  but  its  own  laws ;  nor  any  authority 
but  its  own  authority.  Yet  it  will  love  those  who  sought  to 
intensify  it,  and  speak  often  of  them.  And  of  these  Christ 
was  one. 

"  Know  thyself  "  was  written  over  the  portal  of  the  antique 
world.  Over  the  portal  of  the  new  world,  "  Be  thyself " 
sliall  be  written.  And  the  message  of  Christ  to  man  was 
simj)ly  "  Be  thyself.'     That  is  the  secret  of  Christ. 

When  Jesus  talks  about  the  poor  he  simjjly  means  personali- 
ties, just  as  when  he  talks  about  the  rich  he  simply  means 
people  who  have  not  developed  their  personalities.  Jesus 
moved  in  a  community  that  allowed  the  accumulation  of  priv- 
ate property  just  as  ours  does,  and  the  gospel  that  he  preached 
was,  not  that  in  such  a  community  it  is  an  advantage  for  a 
man  to  live  on  scanty,  unwholesome  food,  to  wear  ragged, 
unwholesome  clothes,  to  sleep  in  horrid,  unwholesome  dwell- 
ings, and  a  disadvantage  for  a  man  to  live  under  healthy, 
pleasant,  and  decent  conditions.  Such  a  view  would  have  been 
wrong  there  and  then,  and  would,  of  course,  be  still  more 
wrong  now  and  in  England;  for  as  man  moves  northward  the 
material  necessities  of  life  become  of  more  vital  importance, 
and  our  society  is  infinitely  more  complex,  and  displays  far 
greater  extremes  of  luxury  and  pauperism  than  any  society 
of  the  antique  world.  What  Jesus  meant,  was  this.  He  said 
to  man,  "  You  have  a  wonderful  personality.  Develop  it. 
Be  yourself.  Don't  imagine  that  your  perfection  lies  in  ac- 
cumulating or  possessing  external  things.  Your  perfection 
is  inside  of  you.  If  only  you  could  realise  that,  you  would 
not  want  to  be  rich.  Ordinary  riches  can  be  stolen  from  a 
man.  Real  riches  cannot.  In  the  treasury-house  of  your  soul, 
there  are  infinitely  precious  things,  that  may  not  be  taken 
from  you.  And  so,  try  to  so  shape  your  life  that  external 
things  will  not  liarm  you.  And  try  also  to  get  rid  of  personal 
property.  It  involves  sordid  preoccupation,  endless  industry, 
continual  wrong.  Personal  property  hinders  Individualism 
at  every  step."     It  is  to  be  noted  that  Jesus  never  says  that 


126  WILDE 

impoverished  people  are  necessarily  good,  or  wealthy  people 
necessarily  bad.  That  would  not  have  been  true.  Wealthy 
people  are,  as  a  class,  better  than  impoverished  people,  more 
moral,  more  intellectual,  more  well-behaved.  There  is  only 
one  class  in  the  community  that  thinks  more  about  money 
than  the  rich,  and  that  is  the  poor.  The  poor  can  think  of 
nothing  else.  That  is  the  misery  of  being  poor.  What  Jesus 
does  say,  is  that  man  reaches  his  perfection,  not  through 
what  he  has,  not  even  through  what  he  does,  but  entirely 
through  what  he  is.  And  so  the  wealthy  young  man  who 
comes  to  Jesus  is  represented  as  a  thoroughly  good  citizen, 
who  has  broken  none  of  the  laws  of  his  state,  none  of  the 
commandments  of  his  religion.  He  is  quite  respectable,  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  that  extraordinary  word.  Jesus  says 
to  him,  "  You  should  give  up  private  property.  It  hinders 
you  from  realising  your  perfection.  It  is  a  drag  upon  you. 
It  is  a  burden.  Your  personality  does  not  need  it.  It  is 
within  you,  and  not  outside  of  you,  that  you  will  find  what 
you  really  are,  and  what  you  really  want."  To  his  own 
friends  he  says  the  same  thing.  He  tells  them  to  be  them- 
selves, and  not  to  be  always  worrying  about  other  things. 
What  do  other  things  matter.''  Man  is  complete  in  himself. 
When  they  go  into  the  world,  the  world  will  disagree  with 
them.  That  is  inevitable.  The  world  hates  Individualism. 
But  that  is  not  to  trouble  them.  They  are  to  be  calm  and 
self-centred.  If  a  man  takes  their  cloak,  they  are  to  give 
him  their  coat,  just  to  show  that  material  things  are  of  no 
importance.  If  people  abuse  them,  they  are  not  to  answer 
back.  What  does  it  signify?  The  things  people  say  of  a 
man  do  not  alter  a  man.  He  is  what  he  is.  Public  opinion 
is  of  no  value  whatsoever.  Even  if  people  employ  actual 
violence,  they  are  not  to  be  violent  in  turn.  That  would  be  to 
fall  to  the  same  low  level.  After  all,  even  in  prison,  a  man 
can  be  quite  free.  His  soul  can  be  free.  His  personality 
can  be  untroubled.  He  can  be  at  peace.  And,  above  all 
things,  they  are  not  to  interfere  with  other  people  or  judge 
them  in  any  way.  Personality  is  a  very  mysterious  thing. 
A  man  cannot  always  be  estimated  by  wliat  he  does.  He 
may  keep  the  law  and  yet  be  worthless.     He  may  break  the 


WILDE  127 

law,  and  yet  be  fine.  He  may  be  bad,  without  ever  doing 
anything  bad.  He  may  commit  a  sin  against  society,  and  yet 
realise  through  that  sin  his  true  perfection. 

There  was  a  woman  who  was  taken  in  adultery.  We 
are  not  told  the  history  of  her  love,  but  that  love  must  have 
been  very  great;  for  Jesus  said  that  her  sins  were  forgiven 
her,  not  because  she  repented,  but  because  her  love  was  so 
intense  and  wonderful.  Later  on,  a  short  time  before  his 
death,  as  he  sat  at  a  feast,  the  woman  came  in  and  poured 
costly  perfumes  on  his  hair.  His  friends  tried  to  interfere 
with  her,  and  said  that  it  was  extravagance,  and  that  the 
money  that  the  perfume  cost  should  have  been  expended 
on  charitable  relief  of  people  in  want,  or  something  of  that 
kind.  Jesus  did  not  accept  that  view.  He  pointed  out  that 
the  material  needs  of  Man  were  great  and  very  permanent, 
but  that  the  spiritual  needs  of  Man  were  greater  still,  and 
that  in  one  divine  moment,  and  by  selecting  its  own  mode 
of  expression,  a  personality  might  make  itself  perfect.  The 
world  worships  the  woman,  even  now,  as  a  saint. 

Yes ;  there  are  suggestive  things  in  Individualism.  Social- 
ism annihilates  family  life,  for  instance.  With  the  abolition 
of  private  property,  marriage  in  its  present  form  must  dis- 
appear. This  is  part  of  the  programme.  Individualism  ac- 
cepts this  and  makes  it  fine.  It  converts  the  abolition  of  legal 
restraint  into  a  form  of  freedom  that  will  help  the  full  de- 
velopment of  personality,  and  make  the  love  of  man  and 
woman  more  wonderful,  more  beautiful,  and  more  ennobling. 
Jesus  knew  this.  He  rejected  the  claims  of  family  life, 
although  they  existed  in  his  day  and  community  in  a  very 
marked  form.  "  Who  is  my  mother  ?  Who  are  my 
brothers?"  he  said,  when  he  was  told  that  they  wished  to 
speak  to  him.  When  one  of  his  followers  asked  leave  to  go 
and  bury  his  father,  "  Let  the  dead  bury  the  dead,"  was 
his  terrible  answer.  He  would  allow  no  claim  whatsoever  to 
be  made  on  personality. 

And  so  he  who  would  lead  a  Christlike  life  is  he  who  is 
perfectly  and  absolutely  himself.  He  may  be  a  great  poet, 
or  a  great  man  of  science;  or  a  young  student  at  a  Uni- 
versity, or  one  who  watches  sheep  upon  a  moor;  or  a  maker 


128  WILDE 

of  dramas,  like  Shakespeare,  or  a  thinker  about  God,  like 
Spinoza;  or  a  child  who  plays  in  a  garden,  or  a  fisherman 
who  throws  his  net  into  the  sea.  It  does  not  matter  what  he 
is,  as  long  as  he  realises  the  perfection  of  the  soul  that  is 
within  him.  All  imitation  in  morals  and  in  life  is  wrong. 
Through  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  at  the  present  day  crawls 
one  who  is  mad  and  carries  a  wooden  cross  on  his  shoulders. 
He  is  a  symbol  of  the  lives  that  are  marred  by  imitation. 
Father  Damien  was  Christlike  when  he  went  out  to  live 
with  the  lepers,  because  in  such  service  he  realised  fully 
what  was  best  in  him.  But  he  was  not  more  Christlike  than 
Wagner  when  he  realised  liis  soul  in  music;  or  than  Shelley, 
when  he  realised  his  soul  in  song.  There  is  no  one  type 
for  man.  There  are  as  many  perfections  as  there  are  im- 
perfect men.  And  while  to  the  claims  of  charity  a  man  may 
yield  and  yet  be  free,  to  the  claims  of  conformity  no  man 
may  yield  and  remain  free  at  all. 

Individualism,  then,  is  what  through  Socialism  we  are  to 
attain.  As  a  natural  result  the  State  must  give  up  all  idea 
of  government.  It  must  give  it  up  because,  as  a  wise  man 
once  said  many  centuries  before  Christ,  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  leaving  mankind  alone;  tliere  is  no  such  thing  as  govern- 
ing mankind.  All  modes  of  government  are  failures.  Des- 
potism is  unjust  to  everybody,  including  the  despot,  who  was 
probably  made  for  better  things.  Oligarchies  are  unjust  to 
the  many,  and  ochlocracies  are  unjust  to  the  few.  High 
hopes  were  once  formed  of  democracy ;  but  democracy  means 
simply  the  bludgeoning  of  the  people  by  the  people  for  the 
people.  It  has  been  found  out.  I  must  say  that  it  was 
high  time,  for  all  authority  is  quite  degrading.  It  degrades 
those  who  exercise  it,  and  degrades  tliose  over  whom  it  is 
exercised.  Wlien  it  is  violently,  grossly,  and  cruelly  used,  it 
produces  a  good  effect,  by  creating,  or  at  any  rate  bring- 
ing out,  the  spirit  of  revolt  and  Individualism  tliat  is  to  kill 
it.  When  it  is  used  with  a  certain  amount  of  kindness,  and 
accompanied  by  prizes  and  rewards,  it  is  dreadfully  demoral- 
ising. People,  in  that  case,  are  less  conscious  of  the  liorrible 
pressure  that  is  being  put  on  tliem,  and  so  go  througli  tlieir 
lives  in  a  sort  of  coarse  comfort,  like  petted  animals,  with- 


WILDE  129 

out  ever  realising  that  they  are  probably  thinking  other 
people's  thoughts,  living  by  other  people's  standards,  wearing 
practically  what  one  may  call  other  people's  second-hand 
clothes,  and  never  being  themselves  for  a  single  moment. 
"  He  who  would  be  free,"  says  a  fine  thinker,  "  must  not  con- 
form." And  authority,  by  bribing  people  to  conform,  produces 
a  very  gross  kind  of  over-fed  barbarism  amongst  us. 

With  authority,  punishment  will  pass  away.  This  will  be 
a  great  gain  —  a  gain,  in  fact,  of  incalculable  value.  As  one 
reads  history,  not  in  the  expurgated  editions  written  for 
schoolboys  and  passmen,  but  in  the  original  authorities  of 
each  time,  one  is  absolutely  sickened,  not  by  crimes  that  the 
wicked  have  committed,  but  by  the  punishments  that  the  good 
have  inflicted ;  and  a  community  is  infinitely  more  brutalised 
by  the  habitual  employment  of  punishment,  than  it  is  by  the 
occurrence  of  crime.  It  obviously  follows  that  the  more 
punishment  is  inflicted  the  more  crime  is  produced,  and  most 
modern  legislation  has  clearly  recognised  this,  and  has  made 
it  its  task  to  diminish  punishment  as  far  as  it  thinks  it  can. 
Wherever  it  has  really  diminished  it,  the  results  have  always 
been  extremely  good.  The  less  punishment,  the  less  crime. 
When  tliere  is  no  punishment  at  all,  crime  will  either  cease 
to  exist,  or,  if  it  occurs,  will  be  treated  by  physicians  as  a 
very  distressing  form  of  dementia,  to  be  cured  by  care  and 
kindness.  For  what  are  called  criminals  nowadays  are  not 
criminals  at  all.  Starvation,  and  not  sin,  is  the  parent  of 
modern  crime.  That  indeed  is  the  reason  why  our  criminals 
are,  as  a  class,  so  absolutely  uninteresting  from  any  psy- 
chological point  of  view.  They  are  not  marvellous  Macbeths 
and  terrible  Vautrins.  They  are  merely  what  ordinary, 
respectable  commonplace  people  would  be  if  they  had  not  got 
enough  to  eat.  When  private  property  is  abolished  there  will 
be  no  necessity  for  crime,  no  demand  for  it;  it  will  cease  to 
exist.  Of  course,  all  crimes  are  not  crimes  against  property, 
though  such  are  the  crimes  that  the  English  law,  valuing 
what  a  man  has  more  than  what  a  man  is,  punishes  with 
the  harshest  and  most  horrible  severity  (if  we  except  the 
crime  of  murder,  and  regard  death  as  worse  than  penal 
servitude,  a  point  on  which  our  criminals,  I  believe,  disagree). 


130  WILDE 

But  though  a  crime  may  not  be  against  property,  it  may 
spring  from  the  misery  and  rage  and  depression  produced 
by  our  wrong  system  of  property-holding,  and  so,  when  that 
system  is  abolished,  will  disappear.  When  each  member  of 
the  community  has  sufficient  for  his  wants,  and  is  not  inter- 
fered with  by  his  neighbor,  it  will  not  be  an  object  of  any 
interest  to  him  to  interfere  with  anyone  else.  Jealousy,  which 
is  an  extraordinary  source  of  crime  in  modern  life,  is  an 
emotion  closely  bound  up  with  our  conceptions  of  property, 
and  under  Socialism  and  Individualism  will  die  out.  It  is 
remarkable  that  in  communistic  tribes  jealousy  is  entirely  un- 
known. 

Now  as  the  State  is  not  to  govern,  it  may  be  asked  what 
the  State  is  to  do.  The  State  is  to  be  a  voluntary  association 
that  will  organize  labor,  and  be  the  manufacturer  and  dis- 
tributor of  necessary  commodities.  The  State  is  to  make 
what  is  useful.  The  individual  is  to  make  what  is  beautiful. 
And  as  I  have  mentioned  the  word  labor,  I  cannot  help  say- 
ing that  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  is  being  written  and  talked 
nowadays  about  the  dignity  of  manual  labor.  There  is  noth- 
ing necessarily  dignified  about  manual  labor  at  all,  and  most 
of  it  is  absolutely  degrading.  It  is  mentally  and  morally 
injurious  to  man  to  do  anything  in  which  he  does  not  find 
pleasure,  and  many  forms  of  labor  are  quite  pleasureless 
activities,  and  should  be  regarded  as  such.  To  sweep  a  slushy 
crossing  for  eight  hours  on  a  day  when  the  east  wind  is 
blowing  is  a  disgusting  occupation.  To  sweep  it  with  mental, 
moral,  or  physical  dignity  seems  to  me  to  be  impossible.  To 
sweep  it  with  joy  would  be  appalling.  Man  is  made  for 
something  better  than  disturbing  dirt.  All  work  of  that  kind 
should  be  done  by  a  machine. 

And  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  will  be  so.  Up  to  the  present, 
man  has  been,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  slave  of  machinery, 
and  there  is  something  tragic  in  the  fact  that  as  soon  as  man 
had  invented  a  machine  to  do  his  work  he  began  to  starve. 
This,  however,  is,  of  course,  the  result  of  our  property  system 
and  our  system  of  com])etition.  One  man  owns  a  machine 
which  does  the  work  of  five  liundred  men.  Five  hundred  men 
are,  in  consequence,  thrown  out  of  employment,  and,  having 


WILDE  131 

no  work  to  do,  become  hungry  and  take  to  thieving.  The 
one  man  secures  the  produce  of  the  machine  and  keeps  it, 
and  has  five  hundred  times  as  much  as  he  should  have,  and 
probably,  which  is  of  much  more  importance,  a  great  deal  more 
than  he  really  wants.  Were  that  machine  the  property  of 
all,  everybody  would  benefit  by  it.  It  would  be  an  immense 
advantage  to  the  community.  All  unintellectual  labor,  all 
monotonous,  dull  labor,  all  labor  that  deals  with  dreadful 
things,  and  involves  unpleasant  conditions,  must  be  done  by 
machinery.  Machinery  must  work  for  us  in  coal  mines,  and 
do  all  sanitary  services,  and  be  the  stoker  of  steamers,  and 
clean  the  streets,  and  run  messages  on  wet  days,  and  do 
anything  that  is  tedious  or  distressing.  At  present  machinery 
competes  against  man.  Under  proper  conditions  machinery 
will  serve  man.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  this  is  the 
future  of  machinery;  and  just  as  trees  grow  while  the  country 
gentleman  is  asleep,  so  while  Humanity  will  be  amusing  it- 
self, or  enjoying  cultivated  leisure  —  which,  and  not  labor, 
is  the  aim  of  man  —  or  making  beautiful  things,  or  reading 
beautiful  things,  or  simply  contemplating  the  world  with  ad- 
miration and  delight,  machinery  will  be  doing  all  the  neces- 
sary and  unpleasant  work.  The  fact  is,  that  civilisation  re- 
quires slaves.  The  Greeks  were  quite  right  there.  Unless 
there  are  slaves  to  do  the  ugly,  horrible,  uninteresting  work, 
culture  and  contemplation  become  almost  impossible.  Human 
slavery  is  wrong,  insecure,  and  demoralising.  On  mechanical 
slavery,  on  the  slavery  of  the  machine,  the  future  of  the 
world  depends.  And  when  scientific  men  are  no  longer 
called  upon  to  go  down  to  a  depressing  East  End  and  dis- 
tribute bad  cocoa  and  worse  blankets  to  starving  people,  they 
will  have  delightful  leisure  in  which  to  devise  wonderful  and 
marvellous  things  for  their  own  joy  and  the  joy  of  every  one 
else.  There  will  be  great  storages  of  force  for  every  city, 
and  for  every  house  if  required,  and  this  force  man  will  con- 
vert into  heat,  light,  or  motion,  according  to  his  needs.  Is 
this  Utopian?  A  map  of  the  world  that  does  not  include 
Utopia  is  not  worth  even  glancing  at,  for  it  leaves  out  the 
one  country  at  which  Humanity  is  always  landing.  And  when 
Humanity    lands    there,   it   looks    out,    and,   seeing   a   better 


132  WILDE 

country,   sets    sail.     Progress   is   the    realisation   of   Utopias. 

Now,  I  have  said  that  the  community  by  means  of  organi- 
zation of  machinery  will  supply  the  useful  things,  and  that 
the  beautiful  things  will  be  made  by  the  individual.  This 
is  not  merely  necessary,  but  it  is  the  only  possible  way  by 
which  we  can  get  either  the  one  or  the  other.  An  individual 
who  has  to  make  things  for  the  use  of  others,  and  with  refer- 
ence to  their  wants  and  their  wishes,  does  not  work  with 
interest,  and  consequently  cannot  put  into  his  work  what  is 
best  in  him.  Upon  the  other  hand,  whenever  a  community 
or  a  powerful  section  of  a  community,  or  a  government  of  any 
kind,  attempts  to  dictate  to  the  artist  what  he  is  to  do.  Art 
either  entirely  vanishes,  or  becomes  stereotyped,  or  degener- 
ates into  a  low  and  ignoble  form  of  craft.  A  work  of  art  is 
the  unique  result  of  a  unique  temperament.  Its  beauty  comes 
from  the  fact  that  the  author  is  what  he  is.  It  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  fact  that  other  people  want  what  they  want. 
Indeed,  the  moment  that  an  artist  takes  notice  of  what  other 
people  want,  and  tries  to  supply  the  demand,  he  ceases  to 
be  an  artist,  and  becomes  a  dull  or  an  amusing  craftsman, 
an  honest  or  a  dishonest  tradesman.  He  has  no  further  claim 
to  be  considered  as  an  artist.  Art  is  the  most  intense  mode 
of  Individualism  that  tlie  world  has  known.  I  am  inclined 
to  say  that  it  is  the  only  real  mode  of  Individualism  that  the 
world  has  known.  Crime,  which,  under  certain  conditions, 
may  seem  to  have  created  Individualism,  must  take  cognisance 
of  other  people  and  interfere  with  them.  It  belongs  to  the 
sphere  of  action.  But  alone,  without  any  reference  to  his 
neighbors,  without  any  interference,  the  artist  can  fashion  a 
beautiful  thing;  and  if  he  does  not  do  it  solely  for  his  own 
pleaure,  he  is  not  an  artist  at  all. 

And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  is  the  fact  that  Art  is  this 
intense  form  of  Individualism  that  makes  the  public  try  to 
exercise  over  it  an  authority  that  is  as  immoral  as  it  is 
ridiculous,  and  as  corrupting  as  it  is  contemptible.  It  is  not 
quite  their  fault.  The  public  has  always,  and  in  every  age, 
been  badly  brought  up.  They  are  continually  asking  Art 
to  be  popular,  to  please  their  want  of  taste,  to  flatter  their 
absurd  vanity,  to  tell  them  what  they  have  been  told  before. 


WILDE  183 

to  show  them  what  they  ought  to  be  tired  of  seeing,  to  amuse 
them  when  they  feel  heavy  after  eating  too  much,  and  to 
distract  their  thoughts  when  they  are  wearied  of  their  own 
stupidity.  Now  Art  should  never  try  to  be  popular.  The 
public  should  try  to  make  itself  artistic.  There  is  a  very 
wide  difference.  If  a  man  of  science  were  told  that  the  re- 
sults of  his  experiments,  and  the  conclusions  that  he  arrived 
at,  should  be  of  such  a  character  that  they  would  not  upset 
the  received  popular  notions  on  the  subject,  or  disturb  popular 
prejudice,  or  hurt  the  sensibilities  of  people  who  knew  noth- 
ing about  science;  if  a  philosopher  were  told  that  he  had  a 
perfect  right  to  speculate  in  the  highest  spheres  of  thought, 
provided  that  he  arrived  at  the  same  conclusions  as  were 
held  by  those  who  had  never  thought  in  any  sphere  at  all 
—  well,  nowadays  the  man  of  science  and  the  philosopher 
would  be  considerably  amused.  Yet  it  is  really  a  very  few 
years  since  both  philosophy  and  science  were  subjected  to 
brutal  popular  control,  to  authority  in  fact  —  the  authority 
of  either  the  general  ignorance  of  the  community,  or  the 
terror  and  greed  for  power  of  an  ecclesiastical  or  govern- 
mental class.  Of  course,  we  have  to  a  very  great  extent 
got  rid  of  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  community,  or  the 
Church,  or  the  Government,  to  interfere  with  the  individual- 
ism of  speculative  thought,  but  the  attempt  to  interfere  with 
the  individualism  of  imaginative  art  still  lingers.  In  fact, 
it  does  more  than  linger;  it  is  aggressive,  offensive,  and 
brutalising. 

People  sometimes  inquire  what  form  of  government  is  most 
suitable  for  an  artist  to  live  under.  To  this  question  there 
is  only  one  answer.  The  form  of  government  that  is  most 
suitable  to  the  artist  is  no  government  at  all.  Authority  over 
him  and  his  art  is  ridiculous.  It  has  been  stated  that  under 
despotisms  artists  have  produced  lovely  work.  This  is  not 
quite  so.  Artists  have  visited  despots,  not  as  subjects  to  be 
tyrannised  over,  but  as  wandering  wonder-makers,  as  fascinat- 
ing vagrant  personalities,  to  be  entertained  and  charmed  and 
suffered  to  be  at  peace,  and  allowed  to  create.  There  is  this 
to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  despot,  that  he,  being  an  individual. 


134  WILDE 

may  have  culture,  while  the  mob,  being  a  monster,  has  none. 
One  who  is  an  Emperor  and  King  may  stoop  down  to  pick 
up  a  brush  for  a  painter,  but  when  the  democracy  stoops  down 
it  is  merely  to  throw  mud.  And  yet  the  democracy  have 
not  so  far  to  stoop  as  the  emperor.  In  fact,  when  they  want 
to  throw  mud  they  have  not  to  stoop  at  all.  But  there 
is  no  necessity  to  separate  the  monarch  from  the  mob;  all 
authority  is  equally  bad. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  despots.  There  is  the  despot 
who  tyrannises  over  the  body.  There  is  the  despot  who 
tyrannises  over  the  soul.  There  is  the  despot  who  tyrannises 
over  the  soul  and  body  alike.  The  first  is  called  tlie  Prince. 
The  second  is  called  the  Pope.  The  third  is  called  the 
People.  The  Prince  may  be  cultivated.  Many  Princes  have 
been.  Yet  in  the  Prince  there  is  danger.  One  thinks  of 
Dante  at  the  bitter  feast  in  Verona,  of  Tasso  in  Ferrara's 
madman's  cell.  It  is  better  for  the  artist  not  to  live  with 
Princes.  The  Pope  may  be  cultivated.  Many  Popes  have 
been;  the  bad  Popes  have  been.  The  bad  Popes  loved 
Beauty,  almost  as  passionately,  nay,  with  as  much  passion 
as  the  good  Popes  hated  Thought.  To  the  wickedness  of  the 
Papacy  humanity  owes  much.  The  goodness  of  the  Papacy 
owes  a  terrible  debt  to  humanity.  Yet,  though  the  Vatican 
has  kept  tlie  rhetoric  of  its  thunders,  and  lost  the  rod  of  its 
lightning,  it  is  better  for  the  artist  not  to  live  with  Popes. 
It  was  a  Pope  who  said  of  Cellini  to  a  conclave  of  Cardinals 
that  common  laws  and  common  authority  were  not  made  for 
men  such  as  he;  but  it  was  a  Pope  who  tlirust  Cellini  into 
prison,  and  kept  him  there  till  he  sickened  with  rage,  and 
created  unreal  visions  for  himself,  and  saw  the  gilded  sun 
enter  his  room,  and  grew  so  enamoured  of  it  that  he  sought 
to  escape,  and  crept  out  from  tower  to  tower,  and  falling 
througli  dizzy  air  at  dawn,  maimed  himself,  and  was  by  a  vine- 
dresser covered  with  vine  leaves,  and  carried  in  a  cart  to 
one  who,  loving  beautiful  things,  liad  care  of  him.  There 
is  danger  in  Popes.  And  as  for  tlie  People,  what  of  them 
and  their  authority?  Perhaps  of  them  and  their  authority 
one  has  spoken  enough.  Their  authority  is  a  thing  blind, 
deaf,  liideous,  grotesque,  tragic,  amusing,  serious,  and  obscene. 


WILDE  135 

It  is  impossible  for  the  artist  to  live  with  tlie  People.  All 
despots  bribe.  The  People  bribe  and  brutalise.  Who  told 
them  to  exercise  authority  .^  They  were  made  to  live,  to  listen, 
and  to  love.  Someone  has  done  them  a  great  wrong.  They 
have  marred  themselves  by  imitation  of  their  inferiors.  They 
have  taken  tlie  sceptre  of  the  Prince.  How  sliould  they  use 
it?  They  have  taken  the  triple  tiara  of  the  Pope.  How 
should  they  carry  its  burden.^  Tliey  are  as  a  clown  whose 
heart  is  broken.  They  are  as  a  priest  whose  soul  is  not  yet 
born.  Let  all  who  love  Beauty  pity  them.  Though  they 
themselves  love  not  Beauty,  yet  let  them  pity  themselves. 
Who  taught  them  the  trick  of  tyranny? 

There  are  many  other  tilings  that  one  might  point  out. 
One  might  point  out  how  the  Renaissance  was  great,  be- 
cause it  sought  to  solve  no  social  problem,  and  busied  itself 
not  about  such  things,  but  suffered  the  individual  to  develop 
freely,  beautifully,  and  naturally,  and  so  had  great  and 
individual  artists,  and  great  and  individual  men.  One  might 
point  out  how  Louis  XIV.,  by  creating  the  modern  State, 
destroyed  the  individualism  of  the  artist,  and  made  things 
monstrous  in  their  monotony  of  repetition,  and  contemptible 
in  their  conformity  to  rule,  and  destroyed  throughout  all 
France  all  those  fine  freedoms  of  expression  that  had  made 
tradition  new  in  beauty,  and  new  modes  one  with  antique 
form.  But  the  past  is  of  no  importance.  The  present  is 
of  no  importance.  It  is  with  the  future  that  we  have  to  deal. 
For  the  past  is  what  man  should  not  have  been.  The  present 
is  what  man  ought  not  to  be.  The  future  is  what  artists 
are. 

It  will,  of  course,  be  said  that  such  a  scheme  as  is  set  forth 
here  is  quite  unpractical,  and  goes  against  human  nature. 
This  is  perfectly  true.  It  is  unpractical,  and  it  goes  against 
human  nature.  This  is  why  it  is  worth  carrying  out,  and 
that  is  why  one  proposes  it.  For  what  is  a  practical  scheme  ? 
A  practical  scheme  is  either  a  scheme  that  is  already  in  exist- 
ence, or  a  scheme  that  could  be  carried  out  under  existing 
conditions.  But  it  is  exactly  the  existing  conditions  that  one 
objects  to;  and  any  scheme  that  could  accept  these  condi- 
tions is  wrong  and  foolish.     The  conditions  will  be  done  away 


136  WILDE 

withj  and  human  nature  will  change.  The  only  thing  that 
one  really  knows  about  human  nature  is  that  it  changes. 
Change  is  the  one  quality  we  can  predicate  of  it.  The  systems 
that  fail  are  those  that  rely  on  the  permanency  of  human 
nature,  and  not  on  its  growth  and  development.  The  error 
of  I.ouis  XI  v.  was  that  he  thouglit  human  nature  would  always 
be  the  same.  The  result  of  his  error  was  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  an  admirable  result.  All  the  results  of  the  mis- 
takes of  governments  are  quite  admirable. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Individualism  does  not  come  to  the 
man  with  any  sickly  cant  about  duty,  which  merely  means 
doing  what  other  people  want  because  they  want  it ;  or  any 
hideous  cant  about  self-sacrifice,  which  is  merely  a  survival 
of  savage  mutilation.  In  fact,  it  does  not  come  to  a  man 
with  any  claims  upon  him  at  all.  It  comes  naturally  and  in- 
evitably out  of  man.  It  is  the  point  to  which  all  develop- 
ment tends.  It  is  the  differentiation  to  which  all  organisms 
grow.  It  is  the  perfection  that  is  inherent  in  every  mode  of 
life,  and  towards  which  every  mode  of  life  quickens.  And 
so  Individualism  exercises  no  compulsion  over  man.  On  the 
contrary,  it  says  to  man  that  he  should  sufl'er  no  compulsion 
to  be  exercised  over  him.  It  does  not  try  to  force  people  to 
be  good.  It  knows  that  people  are  good  when  they  are  let 
alone.  Man  will  develop  Individualism  out  of  himself.  Man 
is  now  so  developing  Individualism.  To  ask  whether  Indi- 
vidualism is  practical  is  like  asking  whether  Evolution  is 
practical.  Evolution  is  the  law  of  life,  and  there  is  no  evolu- 
tion except  towards  Individualism.  Where  this  tendency  is 
not  expressed,  it  is  a  case  of  artificially-arrested  growth,  or 
of  disease,  or  of  death. 

Individualism  will  also  be  unselfish  and  unaffected.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  one  of  the  results  of  the  extraordinary 
tyranny  of  authority  is  that  words  are  absolutely  distorted 
from  their  proper  and  simple  meaning,  and  are  used  to  ex- 
press the  obverse  of  their  right  signification.  What  is  true 
about  Art  is  true  about  Life.  A  man  is  called  affected,  nowa- 
days, if  he  dresses  as  he  likes  to  dress.  But  in  doing  that  he 
is  acting  in  a  perfectly  natural  manner.  Affectation,  in  such 
matters,  consist  in  dressing  according  to  the  views  of  one's 


WILDE  137 

neighbor,  whose  views,  as  they  are  the  views  of  the  majority, 
will  probably  be  extremely  stupid.     Or  a  man  is  called  self- 
isli  if  he  lives  in  the  manner  that  seems  to  him  most  suitable 
for  the   full  realisation   of  his   own   personality;   if,   in   fact, 
the   primary    aim   of  his   life   is    self-development.     But   this 
is  the  way  in  which  everyone  should  live.     Selfishness  is  not 
living  as  one  wishes  to  live,  it  is  asking  others  to  live  as  one 
wishes   to   live.     And   unselfishness   is   letting   other   people's 
lives    alone,   not   interfering    with    them.     Selfishness    always 
aims   at   creating   around   it  an   absolute   uniformity   of  type. 
Unselfishness  recognises  infinite  variety  of  type  as  a  delight- 
ful thing,  accepts   it,   acquiesces   in   it,   enjoys   it.      It   is   not 
selfish  to  think  for  oneself.     A  man  who  does  not  think  for 
himself  does  not  think  at  all.      It  is  grossly  selfish  to  require 
of  one's  neighbor  that  he  should  think  in  the  same  way,  and 
hold  the  same  opinions.     Why  should  he.''      If  he  can  think, 
he  will  probably  think  differently.     If  he  cannot  think,  it  is 
monstrous  to  require  thought  of  any  kind  from  him.     A  red 
rose  is  not  selfisli  because  it  wants  to  be  a  red  rose.      It  would 
be  horribly  selfish  if  it   wanted   all  the   other  flowers   in  the 
garden  to  be  both  red  and  roses.      Under  Individualism  peo- 
ple will   be  quite   natural   and   absolutely   unselfish,   and   will 
know  the  meanings   of  the  words,  and  realise  them  in  their 
free,  beautiful  lives.      Nor  will  men  be  egotistic  as  they  are 
now.     For  the  egotist  is   he  who  makes  claims   upon  others, 
and  the  Individualist  will  not  desire  to  do  that.     It  will  not 
give   him    pleasure.     When    man    has    realised    Individualism, 
he  will  also  realise  sympathy  and  exercise  it  freely  and  spon- 
taneously.    Up    to    the    present    man    has    hardly    cultivated 
sympathy   at  all.     He  has  merely   sympathy  with  pain,   and 
sympathy   with   pain   is   not   the   highest   form   of   sympathy. 
All    sympathy    is    fine,    but    sympathy    with    suffering   is    the 
least   fine   mode.      It   is   tainted   with   egotism.     It   is    apt    to 
become  morbid.     There   is   in  it  a   certain   element  of  terror 
for   our   own   safety.     We   become    afraid    that   we   ourselves 
might    be    as    the    leper    or    as    the    blind,    and    that   no    man 
would   have  care   of  us.      It   is   curiously   limiting,  too.     One 
should   sympathise   with   the   entirety   of  life,   not   with    life's 
sores   and  maladies   merely,   but  with  life's  joy   and  beauty 


138  WILDE 

and  energy  and  health  and  freedom.  The  wider  sympathy 
is,  of  course,  the  more  difficult.  It  requires  more  unselfish- 
ness. Anybody  can  sympathise  with  the  sufferings  of  a 
friend,  but  it  requires  a  very  fine  nature  —  it  requires,  in 
fact,  the  nature  of  a  true  Individualist  —  to  sympathise  with 
a  friend's  success. 

In  the  modern  stress  of  competition  and  struggle  for  place, 
such  sympathy  is  naturally  rare,  and  is  also  very  much  stifled 
by  the  immoral  ideal  of  uniformity  of  type  and  conformity 
to  rule  which  is  so  prevalent  everywhere,  and  is  perhaps  most 
obnoxious  in  England. 

Sympathy  with  pain  there  will,  of  course,  always  be.  It 
is  one  of  the  first  instincts  of  man.  The  animals  which  are 
individual,  the  higher  animals,  that  is  to  say,  share  it  with 
us.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  while  sympathy  with 
joy  intensifies  the  sum  of  joy  in  the  world,  sympathy  with 
pain  does  not  really  diminish  the  amount  of  pain.  It  may 
make  man  better  able  to  endure  evil,  but  the  evil  remains. 
Sympathy  with  consumption  does  not  cure  consumption;  that 
is  what  Science  does.  And  when  Socialism  has  solved  the 
problem  of  poverty,  and  Science  solved  the  problem  of  disease 
the  area  of  the  sentimentalists  will  be  lessened,  and  the  sym- 
pathy of  man  will  be  large,  healthy,  and  spontaneous.  Man 
will  have  joy  in  the  contemplation  of  the  joyous  life  of  others. 

For  it  is  through  joy  that  the  Individualism  of  the  future 
will  develop  itself.  Christ  made  no  attempt  to  reconstruct 
society,  and  consequently  the  Individualism  that  he  preached 
to  man  could  be  realised  only  through  pain  or  in  solitude.  The 
ideals  that  we  owe  to  Christ  are  the  ideals  of  the  man  who 
abandons  society  entirely,  or  of  the  man  who  resists  society 
absolutely.  But  man  is  naturally  social.  Even  the  The- 
baid  became  peopled  at  last.  And  though  the  cenobite  realises 
his  personality,  it  is  often  an  impoverished  personality  that 
he  so  realises.  Upon  the  other  hand,  the  terrible  trutli  that 
pain  is  a  mode  through  which  man  may  realise  himself  ex- 
ercises a  wonderful  fascination  over  the  world.  Shallow 
speakers  and  shallow  thinkers  in  pulpits  and  on  platforms 
often  talk  about  the  world's  worship  of  ])leasnre,  and  whine 
against  it.      But  it  is   rarely   in   the   world's   history   that  its 


WILDE  139 

ideal  has  been  one  of  joy  and  beauty.  The  worship  of  pain 
has  far  more  often  dominated  the  world.  Mediaevalism,  with 
its  saints  and  martyrs,  its  love  of  self-torture,  its  wild  pas- 
sion for  woundinjr  itself,  its  gashing  with  knives,  and  its 
whipping  with  rods  —  Mediaevalism  is  real  Christianity,  and 
the  mediaeval  Christ  is  the  real  Clirist.  When  the  Renais- 
sance dawned  upon  the  world,  and  brought  with  it  the  new 
ideals  of  the  beauty  of  life  and  the  joy  of  living,  men  could 
not  understand  Christ.  Even  Art  sliows  us  tliat.  Tlie 
painters  of  the  Renaissance  drew  Christ  as  a  little  boy  playing 
with  another  boy  in  a  palace  or  a  garden,  or  lying  back  in 
his  mother's  arms,  smiling  at  her,  or  at  a  flower,  or  at  a 
bright  bird ;  or  as  a  noble,  stately  figure  moving  nobly  through 
the  world;  or  as  a  wonderful  figure  rising  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy 
from  death  to  life.  Even  when  they  drew  him  crucified  they 
drew  him  as  a  beautiful  God  on  whom  evil  men  had  inflicted 
suffering.  But  he  did  not  preoccupy  them  much.  What  de- 
lighted them  was  to  paint  the  men  and  the  women  whom  they 
admired,  and  to  show  the  loveliness  of  this  lovely  earth.  They 
painted  many  religious  pictures  —  in  fact,  they  painted  far 
too  many,  and  the  monotony  of  type  and  motive  is  weari- 
some, and  was  bad  for  art.  It  was  the  result  of  the  authority 
of  the  public  in  art-matters,  and  is  to  be  deplored.  But  their 
soul  was  not  in  the  subject.  Raphael  was  a  great  artist 
when  he  painted  his  portrait  of  the  Pope.  When  he  painted 
his  Madonnas  and  infant  Christs,  he  is  not  a  great  artist  at 
all.  Christ  had  no  message  for  the  Renaissance,  which  was 
wonderful  because  it  brought  an  ideal  at  variance  with  his, 
and  to  find  the  presentation  of  the  real  Christ  we  must  go  to 
mediaeval  art.  There  he  is  one  maimed  and  marred;  one 
who  is  not  comely  to  look  on,  because  Beauty  is  a  joy;  one  who 
is  not  in  fair  raiment,  because  that  may  be  a  joy  also;  he  is  a 
beggar  who  has  a  marvellous  soul ;  he  is  a  leper  whose  soul  is 
divine;  he  needs  neither  property  nor  health;  he  is  a  God 
realising  his  perfection  through  pain. 

The  evolution  of  man  is  slow.  The  injustice  of  men  is 
great.  It  was  necessary  that  pain  should  be  put  forward  as 
a  mode  of  self-realisation.  Even  now,  in  some  places  in  the 
world,  the  message  of  Christ  is  necessary.     No  one  who  lived 


140  WILDE 

in  modern  Russia  could  possibly  realise  his  perfection  except 
by  pain.  A  few  Russian  artists  have  realised  themselves  in 
Art;  in  a  fiction  that  is  mediaeval  in  character,  because  its 
dominant  note  is  the  realisation  of  men  through  suft'ering. 
But  for  tliose  who  are  not  artists,  and  to  whom  there  is  no 
mode  of  life  but  the  actual  life  of  fact,  pain  is  the  only  door 
to  perfection.  A  Russian  who  lives  happily  under  the  present 
system  of  government  in  Russia  must  either  believe  that  man 
has  no  soul,  or  tliat,  if  he  has,  it  is  not  worth  developing.  A 
Nihilist  wlio  rejects  all  authority,  because  he  knows  authority 
to  be  evil,  and  welcomes  all  pain,  because  through  that  he 
realises  his  personality,  is  a  real  Christian.  To  him  the 
Christian  ideal  is  a  true  thing. 

And  yet,  Christ  did  not  revolt  against  authority.  He  ac- 
cejoted  the  imperial  authority  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  paid 
tribute.  He  endured  the  ecclesiastical  authority  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  and  would  not  repel  its  violence  by  any  violence  of 
his  own.  He  had,  as  I  said  before,  no  scheme  for  the  recon- 
struction of  society.  But  the  modern  world  has  schemes. 
It  proposes  to  do  away  with  poverty  and  the  suffering  that 
it  entails.  It  desires  to  get  rid  of  pain,  and  the  suffering 
that  pain  entails.  It  trusts  to  Socialism  and  to  Science  as 
its  methods.  What  it  aims  at  is  an  Individualism  expressing  it- 
self through  joy.  This  Individualism  will  be  larger,  fuller, 
lovelier  than  any  Individualism  has  ever  been.  Pain  is  not 
the  ultimate  mode  of  perfection.  It  is  merely  provisional  and 
a  protest.  It  has  reference  to  wrong,  unhealthy,  unjust  sur- 
roundings. When  the  wrong,  and  the  disease,  and  the  in- 
justice are  removed,  it  will  have  no  further  place.  It  was  a 
great  work,  but  it  is  almost  over.  Its  sphere  lessens  ev^ery 
day. 

Nor  will  man  miss  it.  For  what  man  has  souglit  for  is, 
indeed,  neither  pain  nor  pleasure,  but  simply  Life.  Man  has 
sought  to  live  intensely,  fully,  perfectly.  When  he  can  do 
so  without  exercising  restraint  on  others,  or  suffering  it 
ever,  and  his  activities  are  all  pleasurable  to  him,  he  will 
be  saner,  liealthier,  more  civilised,  more  himself.  Pleasure  is 
Nature's  test,  her  sign  of  approval.  When  man  is  happy,  he 
is  in  harmony  witli  himself  and  his  environment.     The  new 


WILDE  141 

Individualism,  for  whose  service  Socialism,  whether  it  wills 
it  or  not,  is  working,  will  be  perfect  liarmony.  It  will  be  what 
the  Greeks  sought  for,  but  could  not,  except  in  Thought,  rea- 
lise completely,  because  they  had  slaves,  and  fed  them;  it 
will  be  what  the  Renaissance  sought  for,  but  could  not  realise 
completely  except  in  Art,  because  they  had  slaves,  and  starved 
them.  It  will  be  complete,  and  through  it  each  man  will  at- 
tain to  liis  perfection.  The  new  Individualism  is  the  new 
Hellenism. 


THE    END 


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